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please help me pocd and phallometric reports making me suicidal


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Read Freund 1972 and lykins 2010 which state for 40 subjects and 214 subjects tested by phallometric testing, although they showed overwhelming attraction to adult female then pubescent men react to pre pubescent girls more then neutral depictions. The lykins people were 65% sex offenders and 35% self admitted to clinic for!sexual issues etc.

Phallometric testing is disputed and not accepted by DSM or us courts. The two studies were done by the successors to Freund who invented it.

My ocd or pocd has grabbed this and feels the world is secretly and my intrusive thoughts are all now true.

My logic says hey, its junk science, perhaps its normal to react, the lab settings are odd to say the least etc.

I have nobody else to reach out to except you guys who will understand.

Please help me.

Edited by njb
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I can't edit my post but i wanted to point out :

The reports show genephylic men (attracted to adult women) react to pre-pubescent images or stimuli of girls more than neutral material or any male stimuli.

I don't know the numbers of people ie 10 of 40 etc just that they keep using tables of measurements etc and it sounds like they are saying all had responses. I know these are not big sample sizes and the device is not medically accepted by medial or scientific or legal community, ie DSM or US Courts and may critics regard it as junk science etc.

My fear of peadophilia and hebophilia is killing me now with this as it is saying all the intrusive thoughts etc are actually down to ALL men having a secret desire as they proved in the tests. The authors did the tests to try to provide reasoning for why when 50% of sexual offences to children are from people with strong paedophilic desires do another 50% occur and so they have stated that this could be the reason, ie the female child becomes the surrogate sex object where the adult female is not there.

This has rocketed my OCD immensely and im experiencing doubt over my diagnosis thinking it is all just what a test would show and im having so many awful thoughts with my little girl which had dissapeared a long time ago.

Whilst i can accept maybe men do hacve some physiological response to opposite sex naked whatever the age; i can't accept the implication that ALL men have a hidden desire or arousal.

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The big mistake you made was reading that report in the first place. That was a compulsion and you should never have gone anywhere near that report.

I'm not going to comment on the report and what it states because it doesn't matter. You performed a big compulsion in reading it which has obviously caused you more distress. In the world of OCD, what goes around comes around. You do something like that and it's going to come back and bite you in the butt.

You now have to work to put that report and its contents out of your mind. None of it matters one iota. You have to stop ruminating over it. Stop going over it in your head. If you have a copy of the report, delete it. Don't go back and read it.

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hi,

thanks for replying.

I just don't know how to process this now. I am stuck thinking POCD as an OCD theme is not true because those phallometric tests show men react to naked girls.

i know i have ocd and it permeates all manner of themes since 8 yrs old and so that is a given. I guess I will need to side with most medical / legal professions etc and see that phallometric testing is somewhat dubious, it could be totally benign to react to naked anything after all.

But seriously, thanks for replying and if any POCD people are reading please pen a reply.

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Give a person a book about diseases and they will find several symptoms in themselves and assume the worst :). It's important to keep in mind that our brains are not a perfect black-and-white machine and OCD skews our perception of things in the black direction and makes an elephant out of a fruit fly, so to speak. Wasted a few hours at work because I felt down and couldn't get anything done anyway? The most horrible person ever!

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But seriously, thanks for replying and if any POCD people are reading please pen a reply.

You're looking for reassurance, a compulsion. I suffered from the same OCD theme as you but I'm not going to discuss the contents of that report because it would be assisting you with compulsions.

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Thanks polar bear.

Appreciate it.

I just find it hard to figure out what it means if apparently normal men respond to naked children then are we all deviant or is it the reactions are just weak, or that the world thinks nob testing is useless.

You got to admit that if some in the profession intimate men react to deviant material its going to be significant to someone with fear of paedophilia.

Edited by njb
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Guest lcraig

You simply can't deal with this problem on your own. If you can't get therapy, try to use one of the better OCD workbooks (Abramowitz or Hyman), and perhaps a book on mindfulness or ACT (Hayes). If your problem is severe, you must get therapy. If you can't afford private treatment, you must insist to your GP that you see a CBT therapist that specialises in OCD, or has experience treating it. I've wasted ten years of my life through rituals/reassurance seeking and it's taken me to the brink of suicide - I've now decided that I will not get better and must seek treatment. If your problem hasn't lasted too long, treat it NOW before it inevitably gets worse.

It would be pointless giving you reassurance about groinal responses and phallometric indices. I've also looked on the Internet over and over at scientific papers/test results and a lot of them are inconclusive/open to interpretation anyway. If anything, they just make you doubt more and more.

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Just think its not ocd now and its like those tests show.

I'm lost.

You're giving in to this obsession, njb. As PolarBear said, stop thinking about it. However, simply trying to not think will make you think even more. So, instead, do something that will occupy your mind.

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Hi,

I'm trying distraction as much as possible.

Finding this tough to shake as I'd have thought anyone suffering pocd would do. Perhaps others don't see it as such a bad thing.

Thanks to all of you for your replies.

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Guest Orwell1984

Njb, you're applying the wrong model to OCD. OCD is about associations that form in the mind between some stimulus and a response, the associations cause fear/anxiety/arousal and the cognitive mind tries to fill in the blanks to provide an intellectual explanation to why this is happening. The 'trying to figure out why' is rumination, a compulsion. The compulsions can be: analysis, figuring out, trying to undo, trying to rectify the situation behaviourally or mentally. For example, a child (stimulus), arousal occurs, then the mind tries to fill in the blanks with maladaptive reasoning, or somebody sees a number (eg 666), arousal occurs and the cognitive mind tries to fill in the blanks with maladaptive reasoning. Anything can be the stimulus, anything at all and this becomes paired with the arousal and feared outcome. The pairing is really just another example of Pavlovian classical conditioning and not related at all to the higher order thoughts that ocd sufferers try to apply to the stimulus-response association. So in other words, there is no point in analysing or attributing any reasoning to the arousal. Ignore the arousal, don't perform a compulsion, by not performing a compulsion, you don't feed the obsession (eg 'I am a sexual deviant' or whatever else worst case scenario imagining here) and in time it will dissipate. Or see a therapist and go through exposure exercises to cause extinction (teaching the primitive mind that the obsession is inconsequential) by facing your fears.

Edited by Orwell1984
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Hi orwell,

Thanks for the reply. I've had ocd since about 8 and been diagnosed many times. Got cbt for 3rd time soon.

Your explanation was a really useful reminder as we lose sight of our insight wheb uin the darkest places.

By applying wrong model did you mean I wasn't applying best methods of dealing with it? I know ocd well and your refresher hit nail on head.

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Guest Orwell1984

What I meant was you are trying to attribute meaning and an intellectual explanation to a primitive brain problem and this is making the problem worse. If you don't pay attention to the stimulus, the association your brain has made will go away over time. If you pay attention to and award the obsession with a compulsion to undo or figure out the relevance of the stimulus (when in fact the stimulus is irrelevant), you're cementing the obsession in your mind and the stimulus becomes even more prominent in your mind and the arousal alongside it.

So stop reading literature on phallometric reports

Stop monitoring your body

Stop analysing the sensations

Stop trying to figure out why

Your way of trying to solve this problem for yourself is wrong because you are focusing too much on the 'why' and then follows a big long compulsion of overthinking, searching, reading and questioning what you have read to seek reassurance. You need to do none of these things and just remain with the questions unanswered and the uncomfortable physiological feelings and associated thoughts. Take the attitude 'so what' and try to get on with whatever you are doing as if the thought or sensation or event hasn't happened at all.

Edited by Orwell1984
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I was doing a lot better but googled and found a report Becker blease 2006 about 531 graduates where 7% say would be likely seek out sex with children and 18% had sexual fantasies of children.

I know I shouldn't have given in to the compulsion but really - can't believe 18% fantasise about kids. Wtf is the world saying.

Edited by njb
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Guest Orwell1984

Google is your enemy and so are these self directed analyses. Quit while you're ahead. Go and distract yourself.

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Well, you did the wrong thing, again, and now you'll have to live with the consequences. You've purposefully gone and searched for information that you know will trigger you, you found it, it will cause you distress and lead you to perform more compulsions.

Going on Google was a compulsion. Performing compulsions keeps the troubling matter top of mind where it will bother you more. It's the exact wrong thing to do.

The good news is that you can start doing the right things (not performing compulsions) any time.

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I went on google last night. Found chap called Robert Lindsay stating only difference between normal men and pedo is level of attraction for kids, complete with a chart from 'lab' studies showing how all men have max attraction to girls 16 (100%) then dropping by 10% for each age group so age 12 was 60% and yes 11 50%. I think he is referring to the information i have found.

I wanted to say to those who have invested time into helping me on this post, sorry - sorry for giving in to the compulsion over and over again, but i also want to say i am over googling. I have confidence that penile testing is flawed and i have confidence that people will use the fact that there is not a mental disorder for being attracted to pubescent kids, ie 12 up and state their own behaviour and agenda is totally acceptable as in going after pubescent children. Ihave seen many many instances where people have an unhealthy interest in pubescent (or pre-pubescent) and are touting the normality of both and including such information in their justification.

Whilst a 12 yr old may look like an adult, the psychological difference between and adult and the child is clear, ie once an age is clarified the adult would lose any physical attraction (if ever present).

I simply can't accept normal men react to imagery of 6yr olds in penile plethysmography and this is being purported as evidence that normal mend are pedophiles, en masse. A few dubious tests of mostly sexual offenders with pseudoscience ought not be flouted about the internet to normalise pedophilia. Even Blanchard stated saying such was 'profoundly misleading'.

Anyway, thanks for listening - I'm on the long journey to distraction and recovery,

Edited by njb
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Guest Orwell1984

The OCD problem is the 'paying attention' to it and trying to make it go away. There is an automatic association set up in your mind so essentially just thinking or seeing something that reminds you of the unwanted reaction will activate the physiological response like Pavlov's dog. Ringing the bell made it salivate even if no food was around. Bell= Instant physiological reaction, image of a child etc= Instant physiological reaction. The more you try to suppress the physiological reaction, the more apparent it will become and the more it will bombard your brain. Your primitive mind noticed something and your modern cognitive mind paid too much attention to it, tried to undo it, paid attention to it and made it stick.

Edited by Orwell1984
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Guest Orwell1984

The reason there is a physiological reaction is because the primitive reptilian brain is responding to a evolutionarily embedded stimulus. Eg big eyes. www.sparringmind.com/supernormal-stimuli/

Disregard the physiological reactions. It is not your fault that they happen, the primitive brain is the cause and the reactions mean nothing. You need to give up the google searches. The problem is primitive brain activation (you can't actively stop this) and classical conditioning (Pavlov's dog, you can desensitise yourself through exposure) and the OCD rumination (a response which you CAN change and stop doing) not a character defect.

http://psychcentral.com/lib/how-to-tell-if-your-decisions-are-from-your-evolved-or-primitive-brain-2/

Googling academic stuff to find the 'answer' is your main compulsion. You need to quit this.

Edited by Orwell1984
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Guest Orwell1984

Mods, Is there a specific exposure list template for OCD and is there a list of the associated response prevention? That would be quite handy.

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hi orwell,

thanks for replying. Dealing with the intrusive thoughts I am able to do but my issue now is having digested all the 'reports', i cannot easily now disregard and attribute the thought as ocd, rather i have lost ability to call it ocd given the information saying all men are pedos.

If I hadnt googled then i'd be with my run of the mill ignore, re-label, distraxt and reflect - I have taken all i read as real and now believe ive not got ocd rather all mankind is perverted, which of course is a thin based argument but sticks with ocd.

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