Locus of Control (image courtesy - Min Thein, pexels.com) Years ago, when I was a child, a family friend had come over to visit us. He was supposedly a good chess player, and as mothers are wont to...

Work stress! (Picture courtesy - www.pexels.com) “How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and...

Some people with OCD have visible compulsions. Like in contamination OCD, compulsions include washing hands repeatedly. Or ‘just right’ OCD will have the person repeating an activity till it feels...

Distraction is very poorly understood in the context of OCD or other anxiety disorders. Most books or literature on anxiety disorders tout distraction as a way of getting past intrusive thoughts....

One of the most damning symptoms of mental disorders like anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD, etc is overthinking. While on the surface it seems like overthinking may help arrive at solutions on how to...

This question gets asked repeatedly on Quora, a place where I answer questions on OCD. I thought it was worthwhile converting it into a blog. So here is my answer to it: Firstly, do ascertain if it...

One of the important things a client needs to keep in mind while seeking coaching, is the need to be completely open, and honest with the coach. In a sense, the coach is like the lawyer who needs to...

Often, I come across clients who say nothing has worked for them. That they've tried everything and that everything has failed. They may think that their disorder is refractory (one that doesn't...

To recap, Cognitive Distortions are distortions in our thinking that disallow us from having a rational view of what is happening around us. Because we are looking at the world with a distorted...

To recap, Cognitive Distortions are ways in which our mind lies to us and tries to convince us into believing a distorted version of the truth. These distortions reinforce negative beliefs and make...

One of the important reasons why getting over OCD is so difficult despite every effort on part of the sufferer and the therapist is that there are some hidden compulsions that may not get...

During the course of ERP, a sufferer is asked to manage his anxieties, specifically by doing something that he has been avoiding or by not doing something that he has been don't repeatedly. For...

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the first three Cognitive Distortions, that is Filtering, Black or White thinking, and Overgeneralisation. To recap, Cognitive Distortions are the anomalies in...

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an insidious mental disorder characterised by the occurrence of highly intrusive and disturbing obsessions (thoughts) that make the sufferer extremely anxious...

What happens to a sufferer when anxiety hits him? When anxiety hits a sufferer, he feels incapacitated. There are various physical and mental manifestations that may indicate anxiety. Some of these...

ERP stands for Exposure and Response Prevention. ERP aims at desensitizing the OCD sufferer to his anxieties. This is done by systematically exposing him to these anxiety inducing stimuli and...

Understanding people has slowly become a necessary skill to develop. If we want to get something done from someone, it is important to know what kind of a person we are dealing with. It is...

Depending upon what we have been doing all our lives, which actions we have been repeating, which actions we have stayed away from, our brain gets wired. The things we do often, become easy for us....

On any given day, about 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts cross a human mind. That means, if you don’t sleep, it is a little less than a thought per second. And if you do sleep, it is far more. Thoughts...

OCD requires ERP for effective uprooting of the compulsions, but as explained in the ERP blog, it requires back breaking effort from the sufferer. And the sufferer often finds himself less than...