Obsessions are thoughts, images or impulses that resemble a piece of meat that we chew and chew and are unable to swallow, all humans, to a greater or lesser degree, we have already experienced it, in this article we will talk about the theory of The Obsessions of Salkovskis
While it’s true that some people are more likely to have obsessions, they’re still a normal phenomenon, typical of a developed brain, so we’d be wrong if we conceptualized them as pathological.
- Having one type of intrusion or another does not define the person.
- They simply appear.
- It’s similar to what happens when you dream: it’s normal to have dreams that don’t fit our values or our way of thinking.
- But once we wake up.
- We can’t give them much courage and let them through.
However, some people perform a process of merging with their own mental content, give it an importance and value that these thoughts do not have.
In obsessive-compulsive disorder, it’s normal for a person to think it’s bad or that they’re going to hurt someone just because they had a thought they told them.
Salkovkis, in light of the above, presented one of the first cognitive formulations on anxiety and, in particular, on ODO.
People have thousands of thoughts every day, from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep. Some of these invasions of thoughts are linked to our personality, that is, they are self-synconic. Others, on the other hand, seem totally aversive to us and do not merge them with us.
To begin studying the processes we mentioned, Salkovskis, in 1985, proposed his cognitive theory. The author makes the difference between automatic negative thoughts and obsessions.
Automatic negative thinking is a subjective relationship that occurs under certain circumstances without being treated in depth (Rachman, 1981).
In Salkovskis’ view, it is possible to establish important differences between automatic thoughts and obsessions, which depend on the degree of perceived intrusion, the degree of access to consciousness, and the degree of coherence with the person’s belief system.
The last difference, to what extent they match our belief system, is the most central. An obsession is disturbing and causes discomfort as it has to do with something very valuable to the person.
Salkovskis claims that obsessive thoughts function as a stimulus that can cause a particular type of automatic thinking.
Available evidence shows that thought intrusions often occur in a non-clinical population without generating a high degree of discomfort.
This will only become a problem if they result in a series of automatic negative thoughts, through the interaction of unacceptable intrusions on the individual, so discomfort depends on the specific meaning they have for this patient.
Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder often overestimate the limits of their responsibility. The slightest possibility of real or imaginary damage becomes intolerable to the person who will try to neutralize it by all means.
This trend can be a consequence of “taking responsibility” early on
This pattern of responsibility, when the person is still very young, has little maturity and few means to handle this pressure, would have led to the formation of different hypotheses / automations:
The automatic thoughts or images that trigger obsessions revolve around this responsibility: “If everything goes wrong, it’s my fault. “This guilt is given not only in reality, but also through imagined possibility. Just thinking, the person feels responsible and wrong.
It would be something like sin, simply by having a thought that could be described as such, so the patient feels the need to put an end to the suffering and guilt he feels, performing different neutralizations to try to find a solution. .
Neutralizations, according to Salkovskis’ theory, are understood as attempts to avoid or reduce the possibility of being responsible for any damage it may cause.
The problem is that this supposed solution ends up becoming the main problem, the person is caught between his obsessions and his compulsions, extremely limiting his life.
Based on this theory, the patient is invited to consider these invasions simply as “noises”, to diminish their importance, not to make a fusion between thought, their person and reality.
To do this, in addition to cognitive therapy, it will be necessary to prevent the realization of rituals, thus eliminating habits and beliefs about prejudice and personal responsibility.