Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Obsession is a survival mechanism. When under threat or in danger, it makes sense for your brain to be extra vigilant. Being on high alert and scanning your surroundings is essential for safety and survival.

Checking behaviours would be sensible. 

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For someone with OCD, this feeling of danger is constant and the checking behaviours become a way of life. A sufferer may feel like checking their surroundings is the only way to ease the anxiety. But the constant need for checking makes a person feel anxious. 

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The hippocampus is the filing cabinet where all of our pre-learned habits and behaviours are stored and this is part of the subconscious mind. When we’re in survival brain we will always repeat previous patterns of behaviour to make us feel safe. Our intellectual brain knows that this isn’t necessary - that there is no real danger.

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Hypnotherapy works by accessing the unconscious mind, where our habits, behaviours and emotions are controlled. The therapist will guide you into a state of deep relaxation and then make suggestions that are designed to help you change the way you think and behave.

Stress, overwhelm and negative thinking can increase the symptoms of OCD through filling our bucket, putting us into our primitive/survival brain - where we repeat those patterns of behaviour.

 

Hypnotherapy will help to reduce stress, increase control and transfer you to your intellectual mind where you are positive, rational and solution-focused.