🧠 Understanding the OCD Loop: Two Ways to Break Free
OCD can feel like a trap you didn’t ask to walk into — a mental loop that keeps spinning no matter how hard you try to get out. You might feel anxious, stuck, or confused by your own thoughts, wondering, “Why can’t I let this go?”
The good news? OCD follows a pattern. And once you can recognize that pattern, you can start to interrupt it — and reclaim your clarity and peace of mind.
🔁 The OCD Loop: What It Looks Like
Whether your OCD focuses on contamination, harm, relationships, morality, or something else entirely, the cycle tends to follow a similar structure:
- A triggering thought or situation – “What if I touched something dirty?” “What if I hurt someone without knowing?”
- An intense feeling of doubt, anxiety, or disgust
- A mental or physical compulsion – like reassurance-seeking, checking, washing, reviewing, or avoiding
- Temporary relief — but the cycle soon starts again
In ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention), we call this the OCD cycle. The key to breaking it is learning to face the trigger and resist the compulsion. That’s how your brain learns that nothing bad happens — or that you can tolerate uncertainty if it does.
🔍 I-CBT: A Different View of the Loop
Inference-Based CBT (I-CBT) sees OCD as beginning not with the trigger itself, but with a story your brain creates — an imagined possibility that feels so real, it overrides your common sense.
This approach focuses on:
- Recognizing the obsessional doubt (e.g., “What if I’m a bad person and don’t even know it?”)
- Understanding that this doubt starts in imagination, not reality
- Reconnecting with your real self — the part of you that already knows what’s likely true
Instead of focusing on what you do in response to OCD (like in ERP), I-CBT helps you question how OCD starts and learn to disengage from it earlier in the loop.
✨ The Good News: OCD Is Treatable
Whether through ERP, I-CBT, or a blend of both, OCD can improve — even if it’s been around for years. It takes time, practice, and support, but change is possible.
In therapy, I’ll help you:
- Understand your unique OCD pattern
- Build emotional tolerance and flexibility
- Strengthen your sense of identity and self-trust
- Learn to live with uncertainty — without fear in the driver’s seat
💬 Want to Talk?
Whether you’re facing obsessional doubts, intrusive thoughts, overwhelming worry, mental loops, or compulsive behaviors — you’re not alone, and you’re not broken. You’re dealing with a brain that’s doing too good a job of trying to protect you.
I specialize in treating OCD with both ERP and I-CBT, and I’d be honored to support you or your child.
Reach out here to book a free 15-minute consultation and explore whether therapy might be a good next step.
🔍 Curious about the difference between ERP and I-CBT?
Check out this post where I compare the two approaches and explain when each one might be helpful.
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