codrot

Cool. I disagree but not sure we are going to get anywhere.

It sounds as if we have wildly different positions so happy to leave it here. I respectfully disagree with your position. My view is that sufferers are the experts on what it means to be them and how they feel. Cbt for a lot of people is useful which is fantastic. I think it's quite a violent and authoritarian act however, to force people to do it as "the only way" and to tell them they any other way is insufficient . If an ocd suffer finds another way and reports that they feel better about it (eg me saying now i found psychotherapy much better *for me*) then you have to take my word for it since you do not know me better than I do.You're making assumptions about what it is like to be everyone. You are only the expert on what works best for you.

CBT isn't for everybody. Regardless of there being evidence claims saying things like "CBT is effective for OCD", which I'm not doubting are true, we also can't escape the fact that we are all extremely unique individuals and respond to different things in different ways, and we have to find what works for us best. So it's worth trying CBT, particularly in the UK where that's probably the only thing you'll end up getting offered on the NHS. But you might find that it's not for you, and that's okay. It doesn't mean you are wrong or failing at doing it properly, it probably just means that the particularly mode of doing things in CBT just isn't your bag. It's normally the only talking-treatment style offered on the NHS for OCD, which can lead to patients thinking there is this expectation that it is the thing that you "MUST" do, but as I say, it isn't for everyone, and we all have unique ways of responding to stuff. I personally hated CBT and have been seeing a psychotherapist (privately), which is a more open-ended kind of talking treatment. I find this enormously helpful and much more my style than the CBT homework-style approach. I'm lucky to be able to do this privately - some places to offer low cost options if it's something you are interested in (Google "low cost therapy"). That's not to say that therapies other than CBT are completely painless. All therapy is hard work and challenging.

That's great, thanks for the reading recommendations :)

I'm trying to ask this question as respectfully as possible. I know and recognise that receiving OCD as a diagnosis can feel really liberating and helpful to people who are suffering. It can give them access to help, be it talking therapy of some kind or even drugs. Knowing that there is a name for something that you experience as suffering can really help. What I'm curious about is if there are any "OCD" sufferers who are critical of the term itself, or if you ever think about this? I feel like using the term can sometimes be a kind of full stop to thinking about my symptoms. The reasons why I might have intrusive thoughts to me feel like a very complicated story that involves the whole history of me as a person, and sometimes just focusing on the surface level of the symptom is kind of like a full stop to thinking about it. Rather than seeing OCD as something that has hit me out of a blue sky and is something that I carry around me like a box inside my head, I rather think that it is something that I am, and have always been. I don't really feel like I am disordered in anyway, so I kind of reject the term. Yet I accept it in some circumstances just in order to access help. Again I'm not criticising anyone for accepting the term, I'm just curious if others ever think about this. Thanks

Hello. I have an initial appointment with my local NHS icope service which is meant to last 45 minutes. I know diagnosis is not everything but I feel like it would be helpful to me. What I wanted to ask it, are the people at icope able to diagnosis in their phone assessments? Will they literally be able to say "you have OCD" or is this something that I will have to get referred to a GP for, and then a psychiatrist etc.? Just not sure how to get the diagnosis and wasn't sure if this is something I will get out of icope. Also, any experiences of that initial 45 minute icope appointment would be greately received. Thanks.