The 4 differences between worry and obsession (explained)

Have you been worrying about something lately? Surely you have answered yes, and it is totally normal. You shouldn't worry, at least for now.

Worries are a relatively normal cognitive process in the population, but depending on their occurrence and The subject on which they deal can evolve to other less healthy and little controllable processes such as obsessions.

In today's article let's compare the differences between worry and obsession, reviewing what these cognitive processes entail within GAD and OCD.

• Related article: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

How to differentiate between worries and obsessions?

Before reading anything, reflect for a moment and try to answer the following question: Have you worried about any reason throughout the day? And the week? And in the last month? Surely you have found more than one topic that you have been thinking about, at least, throughout the last week. This is totally normal, you should not worry for now ("meta-worry" I would call it), although it is true that

If you thought too much about depending on what issues, maybe you should consider looking for a solution.

Be that as it may, the truth is that almost 40% of the population worries at least once a day. However, many times what is understood by concern to popular ears is blurred by another idea that, even if it is a little from a distance, resembles it: obsession. What do we understand by concern and what by obsession? To what extent are both cognitive processes different? The truth is that we can identify many significant differences between them and, in fact, each one takes a special role in two disorders: GAD and OCD.

To assess their differences, let's start by looking at their definitions.

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What is a concern?

A concern can be defined as a chain of thoughts that focus on future danger or misfortune, in which there is uncertainty about the results and events that may occur in the short, medium or long term. In this cognitive process, the future threat is interpreted as unpredictable and uncontrollable to a greater or lesser extent, which makes brings with it a certain degree of anxiety, although depending on how intense the concern is, this emotion will be more or less bearable.

The theme of concerns, manifested in the form of thoughts and / or images, are focused on everyday situations of daily life and can be understood as a first attempt to solve a problem that is seen as a threat or is perceived as dangerous, rehearsing in the mind what the person should do to be able to cope with he.

Although they occupy part of our attention, as a rule worries do not interfere with the performance of daily activities and responsibilities, they are easy to control. They produce a little discomfort, but this is bearable and they do not bring with them a deterioration in important areas of the person's functioning, at least if they do not occur to a too intense degree. In case that is so, we would speak of excessive worries.

Excessive Worries and the GAD

As we have seen, everyone has concerns throughout the day. However, these can increase in the degree of intensity, become excessive and be accompanied by levels very high anxiety traits, traits that are part as core components of generalized anxiety disorder or TAG. These types of concerns share features with the "normal" ones, only here they are more intense.

As a general rule, concerns, both normal and pathological, are self-syntonic, that is, they occur in accordance with the person's own values. They are accompanied by symptoms such as restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, a blank mind, irritability, tension muscular and, also, there may be sleep disturbances, although these symptoms are more typical of excessive worries than not currents.

Contextualizing them within the TAG, we can say that the concerns can become a very troublesome symptom, especially because they help patients develop very rigid beliefs about the benefits of worrying. You could say that it becomes their method of coping with the fears that they believe will come true in a future, despite the fact that their own worries become what causes them anxiety and discomfort psychological.

The content, that is, the topic on which the concerns, both normal and those of people with GAD, do not differ too much. They can focus on all sorts of important aspects of the patient's life, such as health, friends, family, work, school, the economy, and other everyday aspects.

The only difference in this sense would be that GAD patients worry about more things, doing it more frequently, for a longer period and with a lesser degree of control. In its pathological aspect, worries are associated with hypervigilance and low tolerance for uncertainty.

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What is an obsession?

An obsession is a recurring and persistent thought, image or impulse that is experienced in a particularly intrusive way and viewed as highly inappropriate.. They are egodistonic, that is, they go against the values ​​of the person, causing a high degree of discomfort and anxiety. This type of cognitive processes can take over the patient's thinking, making him spend most of the day thinking about the patient. content of your obsessions and, in most cases, they are accompanied by compulsions aimed at reducing anxiety associated.

Obsessions are key symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD. Although not all people who have obsessions have this disorder, in fact, it is common for sometime in our lives we go through a phase where we become obsessed with something, yes that is true that if they occupy most of our daily life, they pose a problem, directly related to OCD.

DSM-5 describes OCD obsessions as thoughts, impulses, or images intrusive, irrational and recurrent that cause in the patient a high degree of anxiety, fear and discomfort. These are accompanied by compulsions, understood as behaviors or mental acts of character repetitive that the person feels obliged to perform in response to the obsession, as a way of controlling this last. Both symptoms cause a high degree of affectation in the patient, wasting his time and interfering with his daily routine.

Some examples of obsessions and compulsions (for example, fear of getting infected and repeatedly washing hands); need to have everything correctly arranged to feel calm; exaggerated awareness of bodily sensations such as the wrinkles of clothes on the skin and the need to have everything well ironed... These and other obsessions and compulsions can be perfectly recognized by the patient as irrational, although it will continue to lead to cape.

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Main differences between a worry and an obsession

Having seen the definitions between worry and obsession, we can review the main differences between both psychological phenomena.

1. Egos attunement and egodistonia

Worries, both normal and excessive, are ego-syntonic, which means that they are consistent with the values ​​of the person. They are not seen as irrational or contrary to common sense (p. g., worrying about failing the course).

Instead, obsessions are egodistonic, seen as contrary to the values ​​of the person. The affected person himself may consider that worrying about a certain aspect of his life in a way constant does not get him anywhere and that, in fact, he is not like that nor does he want to be, but he cannot avoid it.

• Related article: "The 10 types of values: principles that govern our lives"

2. Relationship with life problems

The worries are directly related to plausible problems of daily life (p. g., make ends meet, have a cavity, break down the car ...), while the obsessions may or may not be related to the patient's life, with very far-fetched ideas about supposed problems in his life (p. g., have an accident for not having ordered the books ...).

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3. Acceptability

Worries, at least normal ones, are perceived as acceptable, in the sense that they come to mind and then go away. They are there like any other recurring thought that may come to us, only in this case it is about something that we think could go wrong.

In the case of obsessions, their content is unacceptable, coming to say that they cause a high discomfort in the individual and when they appear it seems that they do not want to leave. The patient has to do compulsions to get rid of both the obsession and the anxiety that it causes momentarily.

• Related article: "What is anxiety: how to recognize it and what to do"

4. Frequency of occurrence

Concerns are presented in a moderate daily number and are realistic in content. In the case of excessive concerns, we could say that they are presented more broadly, being less realistic. Instead, obsessions revolve around a certain content, they change and their appearance at the same time. throughout the day is much more frequent, occupying the mind in such a way that the subject cannot do other stuff.