Understanding Pure O: You Are Not Having Intrusive Thoughts All Day, You Are Ruminating
Most people with intrusive thoughts (often referred to as Pure O) and most people who treat intrusive thoughts, think that these thoughts are involuntary and uncontrollable. The truth is that the vast majority of what people call intrusive thoughts — almost all of them — are actually being thought or imagined on purpose, in an effort to […]
Defining Rumination
Different therapists and researchers (and farmers, actually) use the word rumination in different ways, and that makes it important to define exactly what I mean when I use that word. When I talk about rumination, I’m talking about any type of mental engagement with the problem; put another way, I’m talking about shifting into problem-solving […]
Rumination is a Compulsion, Not an Obsession, and That Means You Have to Stop
The fact that rumination is a compulsion is foundational to effective OCD treatment. In order to explain why, let’s start by defining our terms: An ‘obsession’ is a distressing thought that occurs to a person. The thought is distressing because it’s associated with the possibility of making an irreversible mistake that has permanent consequences (for […]
How to Stop Ruminating
Please note that Rumination-Focused ERP is a new and evolving approach to ERP. Neither this exercise nor the rest of the treatment has been researched, and therefore neither is evidence-based. Please also note that this article is for your information only and does not constitute clinical advice or establish a patient-psychologist relationship. This article describes […]
I Know How to Stop Ruminating but I Can’t Seem to Stop All the Time
(How to Stop Ruminating addressed the problems people most frequently encounter when learning how to turn off rumination. If you don’t know how to turn off rumination at all, start with that article. This article addresses the problems that people most frequently encounter when they know How to Stop Ruminating, but can’t seem to stop all the […]
ERP Exercises for Compulsive Rumination
I use the series of exercises in this article to help patients practice eliminating compulsive rumination. Since Exposure is About Learning, Not Habituation, the goal of these exercises is not to make patients anxious. Rather, the goal is for them to learn that they can control rumination, even when they encounter a trigger. Some notes to therapists: […]
How to Stop Paying Attention
As discussed here, directing attention is a controllable mental process, and as discussed here, directing attention is part of our definition of rumination. Sometimes people feel like they can’t stop paying attention to something; this is especially a problem for people with sensorimotor OCD. The key to solving this problem is differentiating between something being […]
Awareness, Attention, Distraction, and Rumination
An essential part of treating OCD is distinguishing between mental processes that can and cannot be controlled. This can be especially confusing when it comes to attention. Confusion about this leads, in turn, to confusion about distraction, as well as to difficulty eliminating rumination. The purposes of this article are: (1) to explain what aspects […]
‘Thought Suppression’ Has Nothing to Do with Rumination, so Why Does It Feel like You Can’t Stop?
Let’s start with a thought exercise: Imagine you were solving a complicated math problem, and I asked you to stop. Would you have trouble stopping? You would not. Keep this in mind as you read on. ‘Thought suppression’ and ‘the rebound effect’ refer to the idea that sometimes trying not to think about something causes […]
How are You Justifying Rumination?
This article is for you if you already know that You Are Not Having Intrusive Thoughts All Day, You Are Ruminating; know that Rumination is a Compulsion, Not an Obsession, and That Means You Have to Stop; and know How to Stop Ruminating. Whenever you find it difficult to stop ruminating, the first question to ask yourself is […]