OCD Causes: Psychological

It is hard to pinpoint the main cause of obsessive compulsive disorder. However, we’ll do our best to cover in this article some of the psychological causes of OCD.

As a funny anectode, in the Europe of the 14-16th centuries people who had various obsessions were thought to be posessed by the devil. As such the treatment method of choice used to involve the removal of the devil from the sufferer, known as exorcism. Nowadays, there are many psychological theories that try to explain the causes of obsessive compulsive disorder. The most important of them are the behavioral theory and the cognitive theory. Let’s consider them separately.

1. The Behavioral Theory

According to this theory, OCD sufferers associate certain objects and circumstances with fear and they then try their best to avoid such objects or circumstances or to perform rituals – through compulsions – that’ll help them manage the fear. It appears that compulsions begin when there are periods of extreme stress, such as important exams, high career uncertainty or various relationship issues. No matter how tough mentally or physically one is, one is still nevertheless bound to be more vulnerable than usual. It is here that fears appear, fears that didn’t exist before and are associated with objects or circumstances.

As soon as the link between fear and an object or circumstance is created an OCD sufferer will try to avoid such objects or circumstances instead of confronting them. As an example, a person who caught a fear of getting a certain disease by touching door knobs will avoid touching them directly or will use various compulsions such as persistently cleaning the door knob with a towel or napkin several times until it feels clean enough before actually using it. Since such compulsions only result in temporary relief from fear they are actually being reinforced but the fear itself is never confronted directly. As such, this irrational fear may spread to other similar objects that perform the same function such as elevator buttons, etc.

Based on behavioral theory there’s a treatment for OCD called behavioral therapy in which OCD sufferers are taught to confront their fears in order to reduce their anxiety.

2. The Cognitive Theory

The cognitive theory explains the causes of obsessive compulsive disorder by explaining how OCD sufferers misinterpret their thoughts.

As stated in other articles on this site, many regular people have similar thoughts to those that are held by OCD sufferers but such thoughts do not become obsessions as is the case with the latter group. For example, we can safely say that most of us think about accidentally harming a loved one but we’re able to easily manage such a thought and let go. Instead, OCD sufferers misinterpret and increase the importance of such a thought as in: “How can I possibly think of harming a loved one?! I may pose a threat to them; I may be dangerous”.

Cognitive theory claims that as long as people think of their thoughts as being dangerous and such thinking is considered to be true then they will carry on being anxious and will still do their best to avoid certain situations or objects or manifest compulsions. As claimed by cognitive theory attaching danger to thoughts is a cause of various false beliefs the sufferer had early in life. Such false beliefs that breed and are a cause of obsessions include:

a. the belief that thinking about something often increases the odds of it happening

b. an overestimation of danger

c. the belief that some thoughts should be under one’s own control

d. an exaggerated appreciation of one’s responsibility as in thinking that one is responsible to what happens both to oneself and to others

e. a belief that perfection and doing things perfectly is the way to go

Treatment based on the cognitive theory is known as cognitive therapy. In cognitive therapy, sufferers are helped to unlearn their false beliefs and thus eliminate the anxiety and compulsions associated with them.

This concludes our article on the psychological causes of OCD. If you want to add on top of what we wrote here or if you’d like to share your experience regarding the psychological causes of obsessive compulsive disorder then don’t hesitate to post a comment.

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