Psychotherapists Aaron Gilbert and Michael Forman of Boston Evening Therapy Associates discuss the typical obsessive thoughts that characterize OCD. Confronting those thoughts, and the anxieties they provoke, is the way to break the obsessive thought - compulsive, ritualistic behavior cycle at the heart of the disorder. With the aid of a therapist, one focuses on obsessive thoughts, waits for the imagined negative consequences, which of course do not occur, and as a result the body physiologically adapts to the stress and reduces anxiety. Over time psychotherapeutic intervention helps patients manage their OCD, giving them hope.
