Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

  Cognitive Behaviour Therapy or ‘CBT’ means basically to ‘Train your mind to think correctly’ that is, to take control of that wild horse in your mind, and tame it!!!! And to be honest with you this is not easy at all and this isn’t a cure but it will allow you to grab your life by the scruff of its neck and shout out ‘NOW IM BACK IN CONTROL AND HERE TO STAY’, CBT therapy can be done by you yourself at home or in your daily life, or you could go seek a good councillor trained in this technique, (at the end I will list ways of contacting such people)  CBT means you facing your fears, this could for some mean not washing there hands after they have touched something they class as dirty, for others this could mean not counting there steps as they walk, I have seen this in full effect and I can say it really can help, ‘I went once to see a councillor with a friend of mine who suffers from OCD, this person had problems with washing there hands and a great fear of getting contaminated, well, this councillor we saw was also a sexual health councillor who saw and counselled people who also had Aids, yes, a big thing in any ones book, anyway, he told my friend that he talks to and shakes the  hands of those people he sees that have Aids, then he asked her to shake his hand, as you can imagine what a massive thing to ask her!!! Well she said no, so we carried on talking, he asked her what she was really scarred off, and told her it was her mind playing tricks on her, this went on till the end of the session, as we left he asked her again to shake his hands, and reluctantly but amazingly she did, she faced her biggest fear, and did it, and yer, she did ask me if she was going to be ok, but she did it, I told her this, But  I wont fool you reader, this wasn’t a miracle breakthrough and there was a long road still to go, but it was a start, she faced her fear, she had for that one moment beat OCD!!!’  As you face your fears more and more the fear itself lessons, you learn to accept it and not run scared, its all about YOU talking a chance and taking the first step, and yes you can have as much help as you need but only you can really help yourself right! Take that first step.  Another technique of CBT especially to those who have images in there mind, involves ‘letting the images go’, instead of fighting these images that appear in your mind, accept their there, trust me everyone gets good, bad and scary images in there mind, I do all the time, but instead of fighting it or scaring yourself let the image appear and then pass. Now think about it, if I told you to imagine a red balloon in your mind you can easily do this, this is a good image, now if you read on you will slowly let it pass from your mind, it just slips away, you haven’t fought it, you haven’t worried about it, it just goes right. Now, no matter what image appears in your mind no matter how bad, scary or wrong you think it is, accept its there, it doesn’t make you bad or evil, accept and let It pass, don’t analyze it, or get worried about it, let it pass like the morning mist on a lake, let it slowly fade away.This is all about training your mind, and I know it’s difficult, you may hit many brick walls along the way, but the more you practice the easier it gets trust me, now lets quickly look at a way to train and focus your mind, this is called meditation, I’m not trying to push new age hippy stuff onto you but meditation can really help you develop good mind control, meditation is all about clearing and focusing the mind, effectively non-thought. This can be done alone or with a class, the basic technique involves sitting standing or laying down, closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing or just the silence, at first images and sound my jump into your mind, this happens, but just like  I explained earlier about ‘letting the image go’ that same technique applies here, let the sound or image go and re-focus on your breathing or the silence, try to do this everyday even for only five minutes, after awhile you will notice it getting easier, your mind will be under more control, with a stronger more focused mind you will be more effective at controlling OCD.