Treatment of obsessive thoughts at the Brain Clinic is carried out using soft inpatient replacement methods of restorative medicine. Repetitive, persistent thoughts are always intrusive and cannot be controlled by one’s own will. Treatment of obsessive thoughts is always associated with individual difficulties. The manifestation of obsessive thoughts should not be confused or confused with both neuroses and delusional mental states. This is a special type of mental disorder that can be treated specifically. Obsessive thoughts can be treated.
In most cases, we recommend treating obsessive thoughts on an outpatient basis, and only in very severe cases, when the disease is advanced or in a malignant form, we recommend short-term hospitalization to relieve the acute condition.
Symptoms of Repetitive Thoughts
It’s worth visiting a specialist if you or your loved one:
- the same thoughts, doubts, memories are constantly repeated and this process cannot be controlled;
- carelessness, lack of interest in one’s own appearance and surroundings;
- memory problems, constant loss of thought;
- inability to concentrate on the work or task at hand;
- the need to constantly check and double-check, repeat actions a certain number of times;
- the need to do everything slowly to avoid mistakes;
- a feeling that something is preventing you from performing your usual actions.
How to get rid
It is important to find the strength within yourself for the internal struggle. It’s not enough to just make a decision; you need to start taking action. Life without obsessive thoughts seems like a fairy tale. But not everyone strives to free themselves from voluntary imprisonment. You need to know how to cope with this condition. Treatment must be individualized. It is advisable to contact a psychotherapist for this purpose. Competent psychological help can put things in their place and help restore peace of mind.
Unconditional acceptance
Before you try to deal with negative consequences, you need to accept your own shortcomings. We must unconditionally approve of everything that is happening at the moment. It is necessary to renounce self-recrimination. Even if unforgivable mistakes were made in the past, you need to give yourself the right to make them. After several attempts it will become easier, the need to endlessly look for one negative in everything will go away. Gradually, the thoughts in your head will begin to be organized and change their direction.
Building warm relationships
Understanding that it is impossible to move through life alone will give you inner strength. When a person has already learned to accept and understand his own shortcomings, it’s time to go out to meet people. You need to learn to see something interesting and unique in them. Social isolation is always a reason for a thorough review of existing values. Only building sincere relationships will help you understand that your inner state may not be indifferent to someone.
Spiritual practice
It is needed to accumulate internal strength. When the resource begins to replenish significantly, an awareness of one’s own power will come. What is included in the concept of spiritual practice? These are exercises that contribute to effective work on yourself, increasing individual strength and self-confidence. These include various meditations, yoga classes and prayers. As a result, a feeling of self-sufficiency will come, and a desire to act will appear, despite numerous difficulties. Difficulties are present at any stage of life, but this is not a reason to give up individual achievements.
Thus, obsessive thoughts can lead to serious consequences and cause internal personality disorder. You will still have to resolve the mental conflict, no matter how much you want to run away from it and avoid all the troubles. If you cannot cope with the problem on your own, it is recommended to contact the community of psychologists and rehabilitation specialists of Irakli Pozharisky. With due diligence and a great desire to free yourself from anxiety, working with a specialist will be effective.
Treatments for Repetitive Thoughts
Drug treatment
. We prescribe antidepressants and anxiolytics to reduce anxiety levels. Obsessive thoughts often accompany other mental disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. When diagnosing such a disorder, we select treatment for it.
Psychotherapeutic treatment
. We carry out psychocorrection of obsession. We work through stressful situations that increase obsession. We help the patient get rid of this reaction to stress. We teach you how to control obsessive actions and thoughts, capture negative thoughts and get rid of them.
Relaxation therapy
. We recommend attending massage sessions, art therapy and other relaxing therapies to reduce the overall level of anxiety, relax, and tune in to a favorable outcome of treatment.
Symptoms and manifestations of obsessive-compulsive neurosis
Psychiatrists distinguish 3 forms of manifestation of obsessive-compulsive neurosis:
- Intellectual – involuntary but persistent thoughts that do not go away;
- Motor – repetitive actions and drives;
- Emotional – fears (phobias) that cannot be controlled and repressed.
In obsessive-compulsive neurosis, thoughts have the following characteristics:
- Regarded as the patient's own thoughts or impulses;
- There is at least one thought that the patient resists unsuccessfully, even if there are other thoughts that he no longer resists;
- The thought of performing the action is unpleasant;
- Thoughts, images, or impulses are unpleasantly repetitive.
The person usually understands that the compulsive urges or actions are excessive or unreasonable. A patient suffering from obsessive-compulsive neurosis is unable to find a way out of a traumatic situation. He seems to be “stuck” in it, reproducing it in his thoughts again and again. The patient may fantasize about how he could have acted differently back then, looking for suitable words to defend himself.
Obsessive movement neurosis can manifest itself in compulsive hand washing. The patient seems to want to wash something off himself, get rid of the painful, and at the same time reduce anxiety through actions. Feelings that were not supported, to which there was no response in a traumatic situation, can transform into phobias - obsessive fears.
People suffering from obsessive movement neurosis develop specific behavior:
- Disinfection of clothes;
- Reinsurance in everything;
- Excessive disgust towards other people's things.
They do not visit theaters, swimming pools, restaurants, are afraid to fly, travel in the subway and by car, invent illnesses and constantly visit doctors. The Goodman scale is used to diagnose obsessive-compulsive disorder. With its help, the severity of symptoms is determined, regardless of the form of compulsions and obsessions.
Benefits of treatment for repetitive thoughts in our clinic
- We accept by appointment
. We set a convenient date and accept you at the agreed time without delays or waiting in line. - We make an appointment online or by phone
. To make an appointment, you do not need to visit our clinic in person, just call or write on the website. - We prescribe comprehensive treatment
. We combine psychotherapy, medications, and relaxation procedures for maximum effect. - Support after treatment
. We leave the contact details of the attending physician, whom you can contact after the course of treatment for advice and support.
Call us to make an appointment with a psychotherapist. You can ask questions to the doctor and find out the cost of treatment using the contact form on the website, we will respond within a day.
Treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder at home
If a patient is diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, treatment at home is only partially possible. It is difficult to get rid of obsessive thoughts and movements without the help of a specialist. In order to strengthen the nervous system’s ability to resist obsessive thoughts and actions, it is necessary to follow the following recommendations from doctors:
- Develop and maintain a certain daily routine (sleep at least 9-10 hours a day, go to bed no later than 10 pm);
- Take daily walks;
- Provide moderate physical activity;
- Avoid mental and physical overload, learn to switch to rest in time;
- Give up bad habits (drinking alcohol, smoking) and taking stimulating drinks (strong tea, coffee, energy drinks);
- Develop and apply relaxation skills as necessary;
- Use soothing aromatic oils and herbal infusions as needed.
To treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, herbalists recommend using medicinal plants that have a sedative effect (hawthorn, motherwort, valerian, mint, oregano). Herbal infusions should be taken in the evening and before going to bed. And in the morning you need to take infusions of herbs that have a tonic effect (schisandra, Rhodiola, Leuzea).
For obsessive neurosis, use the following recipe:
- 5 tablespoons of viburnum are ground into a paste;
- Add 700 ml of boiling water;
- Infuse for four hours, filter;
- Take half a glass 4 times a day, 30 minutes before meals.
In this case, it is necessary to provide the patient with a complete diet rich in nutrients. You can use various relaxation techniques yourself at home.
Meditation helps to relax the body, calm the mind, and let go of anxious thoughts. Turn on calm music (soft instrumental music combined with the sounds of nature is best). Close your eyes, calm your breathing, breathe steadily and evenly.
You can imagine that you are on the seashore. Observe, as if from the outside, what thoughts come into your head, what fears are present. As you exhale, let go of your fears, resentments, pain, doubts. Imagine them turning into white, fluffy clouds that fly away and disappear over the horizon. As you inhale, imagine that the sun is filling you with its warmth and light. Breathe like this until your consciousness is completely cleared of negative mental images. Gradually come out of meditation.
When treating obsessive-compulsive neurosis at home, breathing exercises are used. You can independently use conscious breathing on a count. Lie with your eyes closed and count how long you inhale and exhale. Then begin to control your breathing. Inhale for 4-5 counts, and exhale for the same number of counts. Conscious breathing allows you to get rid of obsessive thoughts and calm the nervous system. Autogenic training is taught by psychotherapists at the Yusupov Hospital.
Types of obsessions
The kinds of ideas on this spectrum are probably not even fully explored, since not all people are able to resist them and do not always turn elsewhere, remaining in the shadows and hiding their unique experiences from psychiatric advice. There are a large number of classifiers for ideas because they can fall on different spectrums.
Karl Jaspers, a researcher who worked on the classification of obsessions, divided them into figurative and abstract ones. Distracted ones have a neutral composition, but at the same time they interfere with their presence; they do not cause any affects. And figurative ones evoke a strong experience, which carries an equally strong affect of fear or anger, depending on the composition of the ideas.
Delusional obsessions can be classified depending on their composition:
• Reasoning is groundless philosophizing.
• Arithmomania - a craving for obsessive calculations and various similar things. Obsessive desire to divide words into parts, syllables, letters. This is not a very good prognostic symptom; it is more typical for schizophrenia with catatonia.
• The internal impulsive need to retell events and share impressions over and over again may also apply to such affectively uncolored events. In addition, fruitless philosophizing also has no affective connotation.
• Obsessions that are affectively colored, have anxiety or bad feelings, and especially fear or anger, are considered more dangerous.
• Persistent doubts and concerns about the environment and oneself.
• Indecent attractions and compulsive desires. Craving for prohibited acts.
• Psychopathic experiences that are felt as events occurring in reality. This can be a serious experience and lead to aggressive urges.
• Feelings of transferring thought processes into virtual reality are also often affectively colored.
All these experiences are quite debilitating and take the individual away from society.
Obsessions themselves are classified according to different aspects. Mysophobic (fear of pollution), forcing you to constantly wash your hands, protect yourself from germs, and disinfect everything. The desire to be on the safe side and double-check, when an individual again and again double-checks his safety and makes sure whether he managed to turn off, close, etc. People who are afraid of committing sin, perform many rituals to avoid sinning. Pedants who have already reached the level of obsession, they constantly keep order, which is especially difficult for the family. Plushkins who are convinced of the need to bring home and keep a lot of trash and completely useless things.
There are simply many such ideas, and their combinations and varieties are truly unpredictable.
Causes of obsessions
The most obvious pathology that comes to mind when reminded of obsessive ideas is obsessive-compulsive disorder. This disease belongs to the aspect of neuroses, but it is one of the most severe neuroses. This disorder greatly drains the patient’s energy and vitality, completely depriving him of the opportunity for an adequate existence. Prognostically, it is unfavorable due to the difficulty of getting rid of all these obsessions; they are more likely to be replaced by something else.
The basis for the emergence of obsessions lies in the combination of several psychoneurological and biological aspects of personality characteristics. Neuroses that form during different stages of life have various causes of origin, in which it is difficult to reach some common denominator.
In biological terms, the basis for the occurrence of this pathology is some congenital anomalies, but they must have some specific triggering factors, since obsessive thoughts themselves cannot be caused only by brain abnormalities. Moreover, with this pathology, the anomalies are insignificant.
The anomaly cannot always be detected at the anatomical level; often the disturbances are only physiological. Such pathologies are often provoked by neurotransmitter disorders during the exchange of neurotransmitters. Pathologies that lead to serotonin deficiency are also affected, although depression is usually formed with this combination. Disturbances in dopamine, its metabolism and, in general, the thought processes associated with it will most obviously lead to obsessions. This disorder causes the individual to constantly hang on the same mental cud, from which he partially enjoys and continuously occupies his brain. GABA and norepinephrine also play an important role in the development of this pathology, but other neurotransmitters can often interfere with their influence.
There is research about a mutant serotonin transporter gene located on chromosome 17, which may be associated with disorders involving obsessive ideas. There are also studies about the influence of streptococci on the genetic apparatus with the subsequent formation of obsessions, but this is unlikely, given that this is much more typical for viruses.
Obsessive ideas in children can be formed under the influence of the psychological characteristics of upbringing, but then they invariably affect adult life. In children, such disorders can arise due to fear of death, especially if during adolescence the child experienced many trials or the death of a loved one.
Delusional obsessions have more severe underlying causes, but in general the aspects of the occurrence of thought disorders are identical: it can be a psychiatric pathology or psychological disorders. Obsessive ideas in children can be formed due to mental lability, with a tendency of the internal mental health towards this type of reaction. Anancastic character traits are provocateurs for such pathology; chronic psychotrauma and moral exhaustion also often become the reasons for the development of this disease.
