We all know people who think too much, to the point that they may have problems in their daily lives because of it, they are people who think a lot about the same subject, so they suffer anxiety, extreme anxiety and stress. If this happens regularly, it’s important to fight the problem so that you stop being an obsessive person.
In today’s article, we’ll look at what causes a person to get into this kind of vicious cycle, as well as some of the more recent theories on the subject.
- Cognitive theories about anxiety disorders consider deficits in information processing to be one of the most important factors in the origin and maintenance of such disorders (Beck.
- Emery and Greenberg.
- 1985); However.
- Interest in the cognitive aspects of people with obsessive disorders Compulsive Disorder (ODO) is recent.
- With few studies on the treatment of emotional information of the obsessive person.
The most recent research shows that obsessive people have deficiencies in tasks designed to measure cognitive biases and distortions (Steketee, Frost, Rheaume and Wilhelm, 2001). Studies on the treatment of emotionally relevant information indicate that the obsessive person may be more sensitive to the stimuli associated with their fears.
The obsessive person enters a vicious circle when his emotional reactions, triggered by his thoughts on his fears, are similar to those that occur in the face of real stimuli. Obsessions are defined by recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images that have been felt at some point as intrusive and inappropriate, and cause significant anxiety or discomfort.
Thoughts, impulses or images do not come down to mere excessive concerns about real-life problems, go much further, the person tries to ignore or suppress these thoughts, impulses or images, or tries to neutralize them with other thoughts or actions.
The purpose of these attitudes or behaviors is to prevent or reduce the discomfort of an event or negative situation, however, these mental behaviors or operations are not realistically related to what they are supposed to neutralize or prevent, or are clearly excessive.
“Passion is a positive obsession. Is obsession a negative passion?
In recent editions, the American Association of Psychology (APA) has included obsessive-compulsive disorder (ODO) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, due to its debilitating properties, as well as its high incidence on the population in recent times.
People affected by this disease feel trapped by it, repeating for hours, in the most extreme cases, a concrete action without having any control over their actions, in addition, these individuals are more prone to depression and other psychological disorders (such as hypochondria or phobias), a direct consequence of OCO anxiety.
According to experts, COT can be categorized into several categories, the most important of which are:
However, there are many other types of obsessions, some of which are typical of modern society, such as social media addiction, their rise has made them another form of obsession, where the same parameters and compulsions are repeated as traditional obsessions.
As for the obsessions of sentimental life, the same patterns of thoughts, ideas and behaviors are also repeated, with the peculiarity in this case that what you want to control is another person rather than an object. In some cases, the uncontrollable desire to be, with someone becomes such a strong obsession that we end up taking it out of love.
This kind of obsession makes us act compulsively to achieve what we want, which is to be with that person, but paradoxically what happens is that with these obsessive behaviors, you end up chasing your loved one forever.
Treatment to eliminate obsessions is based on altering the obsessive person’s misconceptions about the intrusions of his fears, in this way he tries to reduce the anxiety generated by thoughts.
In turn, this type of treatment also attempts to eradicate the compulsions involved in maintaining beliefs of responsibility (Salkovskis, Richards and Forrester, 2000). The central idea of cognitive behavioral treatment is that emotional and behavioral responses are influenced by cognitions and perceptions.
The main objective of this behavioral approach is to incentivize the obsessive person to develop specific patterns of behavior that cause changes in the way the patient perceives himself and the outside world, for this, the focus must be on changing both mental processes and thoughts and the usual way of behaving the person.