Thank you Adil. I like the way you put that!

Adil you got an email?

@@husainsattar4671 Sorry couldn’t understand what do you mean..

Meaning can I email you?

Was hoping you could explain me somethings

Happy the video helped!

ProfMcGonagil. First off. Love the name. And happy to hear that the video was helpful and might lead to more clarity!

Glad it was helpful!

Thanks for watching and commenting. The problem when one is in the "OCD bubble" is that the imagination and reality are blurred. BUT, the skill of becoming clear on what one knows for sure is totally attainable. For anyone with OCD, it's important to start to build a trusted belief that one does really know things. There are actual beliefs, opinions, desires, things liked, things disliked in everyone with OCD. And it's incredibly important to pay attention to those things again and let them become the most important part of one's story. The truth about oneself is inevitably the opposite of the doubt. Which is why the doubt causes distress. It is at odds with one's real self. Hope that helps with your question on the strategy.

You're welcome!

Hi Raphael, The goal in I-CBT is actually to stop "delving deeper" into doubts. When one is in the grips of OCD, they are already delving deeply into doubts. The goal is to recognize the habit of doubting oneself and doubting the information one has been given, and to stop this habit. I-CBT starts with the foundational assumption that the person with OCD has the same exact information as everyone else, and is just as capable of resolving doubts with the available information as anyone else. Also, I-CBT does away with the concept of intrusive thoughts. The idea that people with OCD are experiencing random intrusive thoughts just like everyone else, and they just have to stop giving these thoughts so much attention is not accurate according to I-CBT. When someone has OCD, they are "actively" doubting themself (creating the thoughts) because they believe that this is the path towards truth. I-CBT focuses on building trust and challenging the underlying belief that doubting is going to lead one to answers. Hope that helps!

Hi Alexander. Such a great question. From an ICBT perspective, a behavior is only a compulsion if used in a very specific way - ie. in a repetitive manner to cope with one's lack of trust in oneself. But if the core trust is never improved, the reassurance will continue to be necessary. ICBT focuses on building up the trust in oneself, in the information one has gathered, and in one's ability to reason, so that you can process information in a completely different way and resolve doubt. Instead of reassurance seeking, one can shift to being an information seeker who trusts information available in the here and now, and draws healthy inferences that lead to moving on. For even someone with OCD, this is exactly how life is lived in all areas outside of the obsession. It's about replicating that same approach in the area of the obsession. I hope that answers your question.

Keep in mind that many things are "arousing" to the human body. Just the topic/act of sex is arousing. Talking about sex is arousing. The word sex can be arousing. Seeing the motion/movement of sex can be arousing. Naked bodies are arousing. And then of course, arousal can start to happen because you're trying to make sure it doesn't happen. You've sort of trained it to happen psychologically. The first step with I-CBT is to clarify that arousal simply equals arousal. Arousal does not equal desire/preference/life choices. This would be similar to health anxiety. A headache does not equal a brain tumor. A headache simply equals a headache. The "reading into" the body response is when one crosses over into the imagination to ask "what if?" This "what if" seems like it's taking one closer to the truth but it's only taking one further away. I-CBT would then recommend to look out for obsessional doubt. This is when one questions what one knows to be true about oneself. Obsessional doubt can be identified by the painstaking process it entails. If one begins to question their preferences and engage in a lengthy reasoning process that makes them believe something else, this is probably obsessional doubt, and therefore not a valid conclusion, but just an imagined conclusion. You'll recognize obsessional doubt by the time and effort it requires to draw a conclusion. Before the doubt starts, there is an awareness of one's preferences. Obsessional doubt leads one away from self-knowledge. Getting back to trusting oneself, trusting information, trusting one's reality, and trusting what one knows to be true is the goal of I-CBT. And that starts with identifying and eliminating obsessional doubt. I hope that helps elucidate this approach.

@@OCDspace412 i have soocd for over 10 years now. You said „before the obsessional doubt there is the real preference“ But I don’t know my real preference any more :( and I’m afraid that I’ll find out that I actually desire the same gender…

@@leozelt2156 So sorry to hear that. I can't provide specific guidance, but I can definitely share how ICBT would approach the issue. A feeling of confusion is common with OCD (In ICBT it's called "Inferential Confusion"). This is due to a lack of trust in oneself in a certain area that leads one to obsessionally doubt something (such as one's sexual preference). As you spend more and more time exploring "what if's" in your imagination without including any information from the outside world, any real-life experiences, and without accessing your "common sense" (not used her in a derogatory manner, this is just a symptom of that lack of trust), you are taken further away from the truth and end up in a state of confusion. You stop processing actual information in the real world that would help you formulate an opinion and resolve your doubts. You end up in a state of philosophical ambivalence where every "what if" seems equally plausible. ICBT would focus on reconnecting you with the reality of your life, with your actual lived experience, with your actual thoughts and opinions, focusing on what you actually know about yourself "for sure" with the aim of rebuilding a sense of trust and self-knowledge. This would be a process you would take with a therapist, and would happen gradually over time. Here is a link for more ICBT resources: icbt.online/. I hope this helps!

Great question. Whatever the obsession, the basic I-CBT approach is to help someone: 1) identify the pattern of the doubting behavior: what triggers the doubting, what sensory information does one bring into question, what consequences are explored mentally, etc. 2) identify the reason for this doubting behavior. What is the larger thing one feels vulnerable to that is driving the doubting in this area. 3) learn to differentiate between a) reality (what one's senses are picking up in the outside world in the here and now) and b) the possibilities one is exploring in the imagination. 4) learn to trust oneself and one's senses again. Choose to trust the reality that the senses are picking up, and don't doubt, question, read into, reject the information one is receiving. A more detailed application may require a longer ongoing conversation an I-CBT therapist, but I hope this general provides some clarity!

@@OCDspace412 Thank you so much for your reply, really helpful, thank you again.