How does EMDR therapy applied to OCD patients work?

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a psychopathology with an incredible capacity to "Infiltrate" the day-to-day life of people without them realizing, for a long time, that something is wrong.

Fortunately, once psychopathology has been detected and identified as such, it is possible to overcome it through psychotherapy; After years of research in the field of psychology, effective intervention programs have been developed for all variants of this disorder.

In this article we are going to focus on one of these intervention options in cases of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: EMDR therapy.

• Related article: "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): what is it and how does it manifest itself?"

What is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, usually abbreviated as OCD, is a psychopathology that, as its name suggests, includes two dysfunctional elements that feed into each other: obsessions and compulsions.

Obsessions consist of recurring and intrusive thoughts that, the moment they emerge in the person's consciousness, generate deep discomfort.

They can consist of memories or scenes based on pure imagination and that have never happened (or that the person has the feeling that they could happen) and that they produce anguish and associated feelings, such as guilt, shame, etc.

Compulsions, on the other hand, are patterns of behavior that the person is accustomed to perform to alleviate discomfort caused by obsession and that somehow brings that cycle of discomfort to an end, even for the moment. Compulsions tend to be highly structured sequences of actions that must be performed always in the same way so that the person does not feel bad at that moment and has to return to start; The only change that can take place in this chain of behavior consists in adding more elements to it, making it become increasingly complex and capable of consuming effort and time.

But even if compulsions produce a sense of relief and make it possible for the obsession to "move away" from the person's mind, that does not mean that they are the solution. In the medium and long term, the fact of getting involved in such a methodical and obsessive way in the mitigation of obsessions makes these are reinforced, since we adopt a greater predisposition to attract it to our consciousness and to experience an intense emotional reaction when this occurs, which we feel we can only remedy through compulsions.

And in this way, a vicious circle dynamic is entered, which constitutes the element that keeps this disorder "alive" over time, and even makes it become more harmful.

Fortunately, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder can be effectively treated in psychotherapy, and one of the most useful therapeutic resources in this regard is EMDR therapy. Let's see how it is used in these cases.

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What is EMDR therapy and how is it applied to OCD cases?

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy aims to “undo” the pathways thought problems that we have consolidated in our brain to process certain regards. In short, it allows us to do a mental "reset" and integrate certain memories and content in our memory from scratch, and in a way that does not trigger an emotional response in us excessive.

Due to the nature of this intervention, EMDR therapy is widely used in cases of trauma (based on memories that have been "registered" in our memory in an emotionally very painful way) and also in the face of alterations such as OCD.

The reason for this is that in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder there is a special sensitivity to the obsessions that trigger the compulsions, and through the intervention in EMDR it is achieved that these mental contents become something more neutral for the person, a thought that you can pass up to see how they go in the same way that they arrived. That is to say, without leaving our memory system as it was before the appearance of OCD, it is achieved that the contents of obsessions stop leading the person to a phenomenon of loss of control and intense emotional pain disabling.

Additionally, EMDR sessions involve performing tasks that are simple from the patient's point of view (although they actually mobilize many psychological elements), and in fact, EMDR therapy can be applied in minors, because or it is necessary to have a great capacity for thinking abstract.

Once the therapy process has been started on a weekly basis, the results appear in a few months, and they are maintained once the psychotherapy process is finished.

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Are you looking for professional psychological assistance?

If you want to have psychotherapeutic support for OCD or other psychological disorders capable of wear out your quality of life, get in touch with our team of professionals and start the treatment.

On Psychomaster We serve adults, children and adolescents individually, as well as families and couples, adapting to their specific needs, and the sessions can be carried out in person at our center located in Madrid or through a video call in the online mode.