Cognitive Treatment of Obsessions: Enhancing Dissemination With Video Components

Contemporary cognitive treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) dates back to 1985, and rests on the premise that infrequent unwanted intrusions are essentially universal. As such, it is not the intrusion that is the focus of treatment but rather the interpretation or appraisal placed upon the intrusion. A number of cognitive domains are thought to be key areas, including inflated responsibility, overimportance of thoughts, need to control thoughts and overestimation of threat. Cognitive treatment of OCD is idiographic owing in part to the heterogeneous nature of the disorder as well as the cognitive domains implicated in the etiology and maintenance of the disorder. Cognitive treatment of an individual with ego-dystonic sexual and aggressive intrusions is illustrated in the current manuscript. Video clips are embedded at key moments during the treatment to ideally facilitate the illustration of this complex treatment. It is hoped that the addition of video clips will aid in the dissemination of this treatment that was recently tested and found to produce large effect sizes in a recent randomized controlled trial.