Pure O OCD information & advice - Intrusive and unrequested thoughts with (seemingly) no compulsions

2 years ago
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Pure O has many variants including Harm OCD / sexual / religious / suicide - and other Obsessive and intrusive thoughts.

In this short video, I (John Glanvill) would like to talk about a form of OCD referred to as Pure O. Where a person has scary and intrusive thoughts - but seemingly lack the compulsions - like; checking, counting, touching, cleaning and things like that - which are more commonly associated with conventional Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

These unrequested and intrusive thoughts seem to follow similar patterns which include; thoughts of harming or killing others which often leads to fearing being around knives or other weapons. Thoughts of a sexual nature about others or fears you may sexually abuse a person. Intrusive thoughts about God, blasphemy, sinning or being judged by your deity.

For some, the thoughts may become fixated on suicide, becoming schizophrenic - or that you may be gay or transgender.

Pure O is something I have experienced myself - and in my capacity as a therapist, I've helped many people bring it under control - by helping them to understand what it is and how to manage their attention and awareness.

We can manage (or overcome) Pure O by learning more about what thoughts are, how to ignore them, then how to retrain our brains (and calm our bodies) via ERP (exposure response prevention).

Then exploring the fact that you probably are a little more extroverted than most people with conventional OCD though the rebellious or dominant side of your personality is probably being suppressed.

One pattern not often mentioned is that many Pure OCD sufferers do (just naturally) have very creative minds which they seem to be using against themselves rather than for their own good. I would guess that if Stephen King had some scary thoughts he would enjoy them and turn them into a book?

For more information my website has lots of information about anxiety disorders and OCD www.johnglanvill.com

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