Well I am one that agrees with the study to a degree. Being someone coping quite well with medically diagnosed OCD now after previous hospital admissions, I think that says something.

My ocd has dramatically decreased in severity due to cognitive restructuring like dismissing the thought. I have vivid images, urges and thoughts to frequently hurt or kill myself, sexually assult someone else or intentionally damage my career or personal life. I felt the need to check many things, have issues with germs and had strange habits and rituals.

Every single time I have a thought like that now I dismiss it as another silly thought that does not mean anything. Acknowledging that it was just an OCD thought with no more meaning than any other random thought really helped me. It was hard at first as I still had guilt and anxiety feelings associated with it but as time goes on it is getting easier.

It is important not to punish yourself for the thought, to see it and let it pass you by with no importance associated with it. Yep, it can be hard to do but its better to give it a go consistently then let the thoughts completely disable me. My anxiety is also much better after coming to this realisation. I still do have the thoughts but they are no longer constant as I give no meaning to them. Our brains fire out over 50,000 thoughts a day, there is no reason why one "silly" thought should have more importance than another.

Not sure if many of you are well enough to see it this way yet - but you may agree when you find stability.