Neurology
This term describes the brain’s ability to change, adapt, and form new neural pathways over time—something OCD treatment relies on.
Neuroplasticity
This treatment helps OCD by teaching the brain that anxiety can rise and fall without compulsions, strengthening inhibitory learning.
Exposure and Response Prevention
DAILY DOUBLE: In Greek mythology, this figure is condemned to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill, only for it to fall back down—often used as a metaphor for OCD’s impossible demand for complete certainty.
Sisyphus
This is the repetitive, obsessive dwelling on negative thoughts, problems, or past events without finding solutions, often worsening feelings of depression and anxiety.
Rumination
At its core, OCD is best understood as an intolerance to this.
Uncertainty
Anxiety from OCD typically peaks and then falls on its own if compulsions are not performed due to this nervous system process.
Habituation / Regulation
This treatment helps OCD by teaching people to make room for thoughts and feelings instead of trying to eliminate them, while still living by their values.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
These are Jeffrey Schwartz’s four steps
Relabel, Reattribute, Refocus, Revalue
This common response to intrusive thoughts—trying to push them away—often makes them come back stronger.
Thought suppression / Thought blocking
DAILY DOUBLE: This OCD expert is known for saying, “Give me two servings and give them to me now,” encouraging an aggressive and empowering attitude toward OCD
Reid Wilson
This part of the brain rapidly detects emotional salience and helps trigger anxiety responses linked to intrusive thoughts.
Amygdala
This treatment helps OCD by identifying unhelpful thought patterns and changing how we respond to them rather than treating them as facts.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
This skill involves externalizing OCD fears and treating them like they’re coming from an unreliable but loud source
Man in the Park
When compulsions exist but happen mentally rather than through visible behaviors
Pure O
People with OCD often experience an exaggerated sense of this feeling
Personal responsibility, guilt, or shame
This cognitive distortion involves believing that having a thought is morally equivalent to acting on it.
Thought-action fusion
This class of medication can help OCD by increasing serotonin availability and reducing the intensity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors
This practice involves intentionally focusing on the present moment and observing thoughts and sensations without judgment or trying to change them.
Mindfulness
Googling symptoms or scenarios to feel certain is an example of this OCD-maintaining behavior.
Reassurance seeking
These three features are strong indicators that a behavior is actually a compulsion.
Urgency, repetition, short-lasting relief
This brain circuit is responsible for OCD dysfunction when it gets stuck on “error mode.”
CST loop (cortico-striato-thalamic loop)
This mindset shift helps recovery by reducing self-blame and treating OCD thoughts as symptoms, not personal failures.
Self-compassion
These four non-engagement responses help reduce compulsions by allowing discomfort instead of trying to neutralize it.
Affirmation of anxiety, uncertainty, possibility, and difficulty
This OCD subtype focuses on moral perfection and fears of being a “bad” or unethical person.
Scrupulosity
In ACT, this skill helps people with OCD create space between themselves and their thoughts so the thoughts have less control over behavior.
Cognitive defusion