How many have had CBT for OCD?

And how has it worked for you?
I my self am waiting to get it, as I have ocd. Have been in psycodynamic therapy for 2,5 years and it doesn´t cure my ocd, witch I know now is pretty much common knowledge in ocd treatment.

Im not OCD. But I can tell you if you are in therapy then you are probably already doing some CBT.

Anyone that is in therapy is working on CBT. CBT is Cognative Behaviot Therapy. Its basically working on your present day probelns with only a little bit working on past issues. the focus is on the present instead of the past. its basically learning techniques that will help with todays problems you are having regardless of why you are having that problem. Knowing the why helps but in the end its not always nessesary. For example having depression. you can still work on the problems of getting out of bed, being irritated or angry, being suicidal, self injury and so on. you can still take care of the symptoms without knowing what in the past caused them cause using grounding techniques helps a person who is dissociating when triggered, a person can use relaxation techniques without knowing they were abused. A person can take their medication regardless of the fact that in the past they had been hit.

ok, but the real Cognitive Behaveur Therapy is most often nessesary for ocd. Im on psycodynamic therapy, where you talk about childhood, and what you done during the week, and how your problems are affecting that. My therapist has tried to work on my selfimage and stuff like that, and alot of talk about my parents, this kind of therapy is not effective towards ocd. In CBT they just work on the thought pattern that keeps the ocd alive. They work on breaking that pattern, my therapist says that she dont get in to changing the thoughts, thats not how she works, they dont have the education for CBT so they are not allowed to that I think.

Ummm "real" CBT I don't understand.

There is only one kind of CBT though therapists taylor how they do CBT with each client. Some clients are able to do CBT in classes like I took depression management classes where over a space of 13 weeks we learned what depression was and how to recognize trhe symptoms and activities such as keeping a depression inventory log, and using thought records. relaxation techniques, grounding techniques and so on. The same when I took anger management classes - over a span of 15 weeks I was taught to use anger management charts, relaxation techniques and so on.

where as others are able to do it as a part of therapy sessions by working one on one with their therapist and instead of set classes its though out their therapy process they are being taught to use relaxation techniques, grounding techniques and recognizing their present day problems like depression, and so on that they bring into the therapist. for example I go through periods of time where I have trouble sleeping and nightmares. My therapist and I are doing relaxation visualizations during sessions and recording them so that I can use this at home, I also keep a variety of journals like my depression management logs, my anxiety management logs, my Dissociation logs,

Its all CBT - using various coping tools to manage my present day problems.

Therapists aren't supposed to change how you think. They are not mind reader inside clients heads saying dont think about this and don't think about that, no think about it this way. Doing that is not CBT that being emotionally abusive of not letting a person have a right to their own feelings and thoughts.

CBT the therapist teaches coping tools and the client uses those coping tools and in time things get easier which that in itself helps the client to feel better and think better of themselves and their environment.

Therapists cant fix a clients thinking process. only the client can do that. They can give them the tools but it is up to the client to use those tools.

CBT is a good method for treating OCD. Does your therapist suggest finding someone who can do CBT with you? It sounds like she doesn't consider herself to be qualified to do CBT because it isn't what she was trained in. Some therapists stick to one method and theory more rigidly than others, and some therapists are "ecclectic" and will try any theory and method that they feel will work best for you.

There are also some good books that you can read and to some extent even treat yourself with CBT. Particularly books by David Burns are good because he writes for patients to teach you to use CBT to help yourself. You can do it with your therapist's help too. If you can't or don't want to find another therapist who does CBT, would your therapist be willing to support you in working through books like those?

CBT is specifically designed to change your thinking processes. The idea behind it is that it isn't the events and circumstances around you that determine how you feel and act, but how you think about those things. The authors of cognitive theories believe that thought determines feelings and behavior. Some authors allow that feelings and behavior also alter each other, and your thoughts. It works by looking at the distortions or irrational thoughts that makes us feel depressed or anxious. If you can see that your thoughts are distorted and mixed up than you can change your thinking processes and also how you feel and act.

As in any therapy, the therapist can't change you - you have to do that yourself. But change is the goal and the therapist helps you to know how to change your thought processes (in this theory), etc.

CBT also adds to the cognitive part with behavioral techniques like you mentioned - relaxation, etc. CBT can be used along with other theories, but it is very different from psychodynamic approaches, because CBT doesn't deal with the past and childhood stuff.

CBT (particularly the cognitive part) is what I'm working on in the cognitive distortions and screwy thinking thread. There are several threads here about CBT, including the list of cognitive distortions above.

yes I know the activities are geared for teaching you how to change your own thoughs but a therapist doent sit there and say don't think this dont this that. instead they say "for this activity we are going to learn how to keep a thought record in the first collumn you write down a problem, the next collumn write down how you feel and your thoughts, now rate those thoughts in how much of the percentage of the situation you feel this or thought that, in the next column write down evidence that SUPPORTS those feelings and thoughts and in the next collum write down evidence that does NOT support those thoughts. now write down a positive statement that will change this negative feeling into a positive feeling or thought. in the last collum write down those same feelings and thoughts and reate them as to how much you feel them or think them now that yoy have looked at both sides the negative and the positives.

They dont tell you in CBT dont think the person was mean to you, that person wanst mean to you, that situation shouldnt make you think .. Dont obsess about this and so on. they have you look at all sides of the problem and then make your own choices based on the evidence for or against that thought or feeling. They can give you the tools to change your own thought process.

well that is what I meant. In cbt for ocd, It´s exposure with responseprevention that is the method used, and the therapist tailors that to the patient. Maybe I expressed It wrong, but I meant that they really try to change the thoughtpattern that is not working by playing it down. Only working with the problem thats causing illness at the moment.
So it seems to have different methods for different problems, do either of you have ocd?

Hi Mikey, ERP for OCD is a very specialized therapy. For example, a man can't drive because he keeps thinking he has hit someone so he turn around and around "checking" to be sure he didn't hit anyone. ERP would be to make him drive a bit further each time he had the thought that he had hit someone and work on the anxiety till it got down to a manageable level.

Therapists who do this often go out into the person's life for 1-2 instruction or the ERP. Sometimes you can make a plan and do homework and do the ERP yourself. Like, say everytime you saw anything that reminded you of sexuality you had to wash hands, bite lip, whatever. Then you might be watching R rated movies and looking at magazines like most that tell you how to improve you sex life etc. This would be the ERP, a self measure of getting your anxiety down. Self imposed Exposure. Hope this makes sense.

You wll start with an inventory probably and work from there. It helps most people with OCD and it, along with meds is the treatment of choice right now.

I have never been diagnosed as having Obbsessive compulsive Disorder but I do have thoughts that go round and round my head and don't stop. It could be just that I said no to a friend and now I can't get myself off the topic or something as major as being anxios about not going to sleep because I just know Im going to have a nightmare or worry about an upcomming event even thought the event is a month away to the point where that is all I think about until I do something about it. When ever I tell therapists about this they call it obsessive thinking. So I know I have at the least the O part of OCD. and using the CBT type stuff of looking at all sides of the situation and so on that I have learned in my classes and in therapy do help.

Hi wisewoman, yes I know, so ERP is an shortening for it. I suffer from thoughts that are horrible and disgusting, and I cant leave them there, but have to `fix them´ with better thoughts, witch creates the charge that keeps them alive. These are actually not thoughts but images and phrases in my head. I guess it will be the exposure with responceprevention for me too, I have chatted to alot of people with ocd, and many with similar problems to mine, and it seems to be ERP to ewerything in ocd that is used. Its funny when I know it the whole time, but still can´t do it bymyself. Its a known fact that a cbt therapist is required to go through this succesfully.

That sounds alot like how I was in my late teens before I got really sick. I had anxiety from all sorts of important things, and could´t sleep the night before something important. I also got gastric catarrh, when I had an strong anxiety period, and couldt eat anything!
But I feel that I was still alive then, now I newer have a free mind, and feel well.
But you use the other methods than ERP of CBT, because you dont have ocd, although you get stuck in thoughts and thats obsessive thinking.
It was ERP I was referring to when I so clumsy said `the real cbt` sorry for that, I wasnt aware of the different forms of cbt.

Thats ok when I read wisewomans post about ERP I figured that must be what type of therapy you are thinking of. hang in there.