Does this sound familiar?
You’re out enjoying your day, you feel happy, in fact you feel really good and then all of a sudden out of no where you get hit with an OCD obsession. ‘Ugh you think, why now when I was having so much fun and feeling so happy?’
Why indeed?
Well there’s a theory to why this happens and it’s called, ‘relational framework theory’ in fact it’s what ACT – acceptance commitment therapy – is built upon.
I’m sure I’m not going to be as good as the creators at explaining how it works so please go look up Steven C. Hayes if you have a chance but the theory is based upon the concept that humans think relationally.
This basically means that humans can and do relate objects in their environment to other objects. Virtually in any possible way e.g. same as, better than, opposite of, greater than, faster than, part of, similar to or like, before and after, if/then, family relationships, near and far etc,
There are all sorts of ways in which we sort and link information in our minds and it has been amazing for our evolutionary progress however it also opens us up to the possibility of immense suffering.
Lets dig a little deeper
As we grow as humans, we create vast networks of relationships in our brains. We link objects together so we are better able to make sense of them and recall them when needed.
Ever found that when learning something new if you can relate it to or build upon something you already know it’s far easier to remember? Or when you try and recall someone’s name it can help to remember where you know them from?
This is because your brain has linked ‘Julie from the gym’, with the gym in your head, therefore remembering the gym will help you recall Julie’s name.
Julie from the gym might also have other connections such as she has a daughter who goes to the same school you used to attend or maybe she likes to play netball and so does your friend Jane – Jane and Julie will now be linked in your mental framework too.
Here’s a little game you can play to help demonstrate this further:
Write down one noun – any type of object or animal will do
Noun 1 _________________________
Now write down a second noun
Noun 2________________
Now answer the following 3 questions:
- How is the first noun related to the second one?
- How is the first noun better than the second one?
- How is the first one the parent of the second one?
The third one can take a bit longer but given a bit of time an answer will come.
This exercise highlights how the brain can relate anything to anything else!!!!!!! It is an interesting insight as ultimately not everything can be the parent of everything; however, the brain justifies these relations by features it abstracts from the related facts. Your mind can always find a justification for that relation! Sound similar to OCD?
Bringing us back then to OCD and the start of this post.
We can see how obsessions (unwanted, intrusive, and distressing thoughts, images, urges, or feelings that repeatedly enter a person’s mind and cause significant anxiety.) can become linked to events, people, places, circumstances, actions, words, smells, music/sounds etc.
The obsession, whatever it is, can become attached to an existing relational framework in our brain, triggering our OCD every time we then come into contact with that object or framework in the future!
‘ARGH!!!!!!!!!’
Does this sound familiar?
Can you think of any frameworks that OCD has latched onto? Maybe something in your bedtime routine, perhaps when you cook a meal and get the knives out, maybe when left on your own with your kids, perhaps when the news comes on, or it could be when you get into your car, the things OCD can attach itself onto are literally endless.
And unfortunately, once it has attached itself, as far as I’m aware, there’s no easy way to unattach it again.
Having an awareness of this is so important for OCD recovery because we have to accept that we are going to get triggered, and if we fight it, push it away or try and block it out, it just makes it stronger and even more sticky. You can’t unravel these networks they are too vast and convoluted.
So what can we do?
We have to let go of the struggle.
There’s a lovely ACT metaphor which illustrates this nicely
Someone is standing in a battlefield fighting a war. The war is not going well. The person fights harder and harder. Losing is a devasting option, but unless the war is won the person fighting it thinks that living a worthwhile life will be impossible. So the war goes on.
Unknown to this person however is that at any time they can quit the battlefield and begin to live life now. The war may still go on and the battlefield may still be visible. The terrain may look very much as it did while the fighting was happening but the outcome of the war is no longer very important and the seemingly logical sequence, of having to win the war before beginning to really live has been abandoned. – Extract Taken from: Get out of your mind and into your life by Steven C. Hayes.
Here we see that the way to move forward is to stop fighting, accept the obsession and carry on with our lives aligning to our values. Eventually the brain sees the link to the framework as unimportant and stops bringing your attention to it so readily, however every now and then it will throw it back up to check if its important and it’s your job at this point to say:
‘thank you brain that’s exactly what I wanted to hear right now’
and then carry on with your day aligning to your values – for more information on values work check out my post here.
If you’re enjoying learning more about ACT therapy then I would highly recommend looking up Steven C. Hayes, which is who a lot of these ideas have come from.
A small thank you at the end of this one for your ongoing support, this is my 100th blog post and definitely something which should be celebrated.
As always, Stay Strong xxx
Conquering OCD 