Ruminating About Symptoms Can Maintain Distress In Those With OCD

By Emily Reynolds Rumination is a key feature of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. According to the charity OCD UK, rumination is a “train of prolonged thinking about a question or theme that is undirected and unproductive” — worrying incessantly about a particular issue or question, in other words. Those with OCD may also ruminate on their symptoms themselves: rather than just dwelling on their fears of harming someone or on existential worries, for example, they will also worry about having these thoughts in the first place. It’s this rumination about symptoms that a team of researchers explore in a new study in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. They find that this kind of rumination can prolong depression in those with OCD, suggesting interventions focusing on ruminative patterns could be one way of addressing the distress of such experiences. Participants were visitors to inpatient and outpatient clinics specialising in treating OCD, as well as members of a self-help peer support group. First, they completed standardised measures of mood, the severity of their obsessive-compulsive and depressive symptoms, and their baseline level of rumination. Before the experiment proper started, participants also identified an obsessive thought that would likely cause distress when spoken aloud. They then discussed this with a member of the research team, writing down and reading aloud a few sentences about the potential consequences of the thought. Finally, par...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Mental health Thought Source Type: blogs