A Prelude to Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques For the Treatment of OCD

By Steven Phillipson, Ph.D.
Cognitive Interventions for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
The "Thinking" behind treating OCD

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is most often associated with the work of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck dating back to the early 1970's. The basic premise of this therapy is based on the belief that at the heart of depression exist distorted and irrational thinking patterns. These patterns revolve around our automatic reactions toward life circumstances which create upsetting emotional consequences. CBT was developed to assist persons to respond rationally to automatic irrational thoughts. Here automatic thoughts are defined as mental reflexive reactions to upsetting events. Basically, the approach teaches persons to learn to identify our reflexive reactions or "beliefs" (automatic thought = B), that occur as a consequence to upsetting events (activating event = A). The prevailing sense in society is that it is the actual situations (A), that are responsible for the periodic upset (emotional consequence = C) we experience. Traditional cognitive-behaviorists focus on teaching clients to substitute rational thinking (disputation = D) for automatic irrational thoughts (B).
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