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Question
93:
Hello: My daughter was recently diagnosed with OCD and high
anxiety... The problem I have is that there is very little help out
there for her or me and how to cope. She has obessive sexual thoughts
that have caused her much distress and discomfort. she is receiving
therapy but there is little out there on how to approach this. In
most cases the therapist told me exposure is used but in this case
it is hard to do. Exposure to masturabation is not an option my daughter
wants to take. She is taking [medication] but her Doctor wishes to
stop this medication in early 2004. I guess what I want to know is
there any approaches oout there that could help her. i just feel at
times to be at the end of my rope. The medication to me has made her
more demanding and outspoken.
There
are approaches out there, yes, but a key component of all successful
ones IS exposure. I understand that this is distressful for your daughter
-- and in fact this is the crucial point. Obsessions lose their hold
on you once the emotion behind them is eliminated -- and this is precisely
what exposure does. Avoidance in a very real way 'fuels' the anxiety,
and therefore the problem. Put another way, if the idea of exposure
DIDN'T bother her, then she wouldn't be in a position to need the therapy
in the first place.....
Another
thing worth noting is that the masturbation component would be the COMPULSION
to be eliminated, not the OBSESSION to be exposed to. By exposing your
daughter to the thoughts that make your daughter feel this need to masturbate,
but then preventing her from actually doing so in a controlled fashion,
this starts to weaken the association between the thought and the action.
This ultimately leads to freedom -- she may still have those thoughts,
but can hold off on acting on them. The technique is known as "Exposure
and Response Prevention".
