Thinking the Unthinkable
by Steven J. Phillipson, Ph.D.
Center for Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy
As I conceptualize Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, the tree of the overall syndrome has three main branches: the "obsessive-compulsive," the "responsibility O-C," and the focus of this paper, the purely obsessional thinker "Pure-O" (Baer, 1994). With this branch, the anxiety emerges in response to an unwanted thought or question, which in the future will be referred to as a "spike." The ritual involves pushing away the thought, avoiding the recurrence of the thought, or attempting to solve the question. Keep in mind that most persons who come into therapy tend to have a combination of these problems. Successfully treating one branch typically has minimal effect on the others.
The "Pure-O" is manifested by a two-part process: the originating unwanted thought (spike) and the mental activity which attempts to escape, solve, or undo the spike, called rumination. The following are examples of varieties of spikes:
A man is involved in sexual relations with his female lover. Just prior to orgasm, the thought of his friend Bob pops into his head. This is the fourth time in a month that this has happened. In response to this, he becomes very upset and wonders whether he is gay. He terminates sexual activity in order to avoid having to deal with this concern.
A mother is changing the diapers of her infant. As she lovingly looks down at the helpless child, the thought occurs to her to take a pillow and smother the child. In response to this thought, the mother panics and runs to another room to diminish the possibility of acting on this thought, assuming that the capacity to think such thoughts may be similar to acting on them.
For the "Pure-O" a tremendous amount of anxiety accompanies the spike, and the mental ritual is an attempt to shut off the anxiety, either by attempting to solve the question or avoid having the thought recur. It is during the rumination phase that the person's mind becomes extremely preoccupied and distracted. It is not unusual for the "Pure-O" sufferer to spend eight hours a day in rumination, trying to find a way to escape. The emotional pull to undo the thought is tremendous. Perhaps it would be comparable to what it would be like if a loved one were on a plane that crashed and all you knew was that there was a fifty percent survival rate. Imagine what it would be like if you were asked not to problem solve in an attempt to ascertain the condition of your loved one. A common misnomer among "Pure-O" sufferers is that they can mentally find the key to turn off the obsessing. It seems that with each new spike, if they could only get that perfect answer, the whole disorder would just vanish. A large majority are aware that this is an impossible task, but the temptation to unlock their mental chains is tremendous with each ensuing spike.
I have illustrated this endless cycle of spiking and ruminating in the accompanying diagram: