Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for OCD: Clark
Contents
Part 2 Cognitive –Behavioural Theory and Research 1
Chapter 3. Behavioural Perspectives on OCD 1
Behavioural Theory 2
Behaviour Therapy for OCD 3
Behavioural treatment of obsessions 3
Empirical Status of Behaviour Therapy (ERP) 4
Chapter 4. Neuropsychology and Information Processing in OCD 4
Chapter 5. Cognitive Appraisal Theories of OCD 4
Early cognitive appraisal theories of OCD 4
Contemporary cognitive behavioural theories 5
Salkovskis’s inflated responsibility model 5
Empirical Status 7
Ranchman’s misinterpretation of significance theory 8
The obsessissive compulsive cognitions working group 10
Part 2 Cognitive –Behavioural Theory and Research 1
Chapter 3. Behavioural Perspectives on OCD 1
Behavioural Theory 2
Behaviour Therapy for OCD 3
Behavioural treatment of obsessions 3
Empirical Status of Behaviour Therapy (ERP) 4
Chapter 4. Neuropsychology and Information Processing in OCD 4
Chapter 5. Cognitive Appraisal Theories of OCD 4
Early cognitive appraisal theories of OCD 4
Contemporary cognitive behavioural theories 5
Salkovskis’s inflated responsibility model 5
Empirical Status 7
Ranchman’s misinterpretation of significance theory 8
The obsessissive compulsive cognitions working group 10
Part 2 Cognitive –Behavioural Theory and Research
Chapter 3. Behavioural Perspectives on OCD
The early thoughts on OCD from a behavioural perspective was
that overt compulsive behaviours were anxiety reducing behaviours to respond to
the anxiety caused by the obsession. Thus there is negative reinforcement for the compulsion,
however because the compulsion
reinforcers the fear of the obsession, through having to defend against
its anxiety there effectively is an escalation in the force of the obsession. Obsessions were understood to be toxic due to
their conditioned association with a prior traumatic event. In this way OCD is treated much like a
phobia.
This is based on Mowrer(1939) two stage theory of fear and
avoidance, where first of all there is classical conditioning that links the
aversive thought with a neutral object, such that the neutral object elicits
anxiety. Secondly there is an avoidance of the now conditioned object. However avoidance isn’t always possible and
so then reassurance seeking happens. This again is negatively reinforced, where
there is an aversive thought, which creates anxiety, which leads to reassurance
seeking to reduce the anxiety, thus reassurance seeking is negatively
reinforced.
In 1966 Meyer produced a behavioural treatment called exposure
and response prevention, the two factor theory provided the theoretical underpinning
for ERP. In the intervening 30 years clinical trials showed 60-85% of patients who
complete ERO show significant symptom improvement.
Behavioural Theory
Obsessions
Rachman (1971) argues that obsessions, like phobic stimuli
are conditioned noxious stimuli cause distress to the client which results in
avoidance behaviours, e.g. compulsions. Obsession are different from phobias though as
they are more associated with depressive responses. Obsessions persist because
clients fail to habituate to the intrusive thought and indeed they increase their
sensitivity and responsiveness to the cognition. This increase can be caused through:
1.
Personality vulnerabilities (introversion,
excessive conscientiousness, moral rigidity)
2.
Periods of stress
3.
Heightened arousal
4.
Perceived loss of control
Behaviourally compulsions are seen as a covert avoidance
that is distinct from the overt avoidance of avoiding the stimuli to the
obsession.
Rachman and Hodgson (1980) propose there are 5 factors that explain
vulnerability to obsession:
1.
Presence of dysmorphic mood
2.
Exposure to stress
3.
Intolerance of thoughts
4.
Heightened sensitivity to threatening stimuli
5.
Personality constellation characterised by
dysthemia, high emotionality and introversion
Dysthemia=Persons moods are regularly low
Compulsions
Compulsive rituals are seen to persist because of avoidance
learning. Avoidance learning is where a
learned activity prevents exposure to a feared stimuli, and therefore reduces anxiety. Avoidance activity is strengthened through
operant conditioning. However the
reduction of avoidance activity is very short lived, hence it is repeated. There are some instances where there is no
anxiety reduction post compulsion but in these instances there can be seen
negative meta- cognitions about the compulsion producing feelings of guilt
etc. Alternatively the compulsion may be
to prevent a long term feared consequence at the expense of a short term
increase in anxiety.
Empirical Support
Because classical conditioning is the behaviourist’s
explanation for the genesis of obsessions, this provides a directly testable
hypothesis. There is considerable 80%
empirical support for this (Steketee 1985) however 20-30% occur without
external stimuli. Rachman (1980) shows there is little relation between
obsessions and environmental events.
When a client has an intrusive thought then their anxiety
goes up. In this heightened state then they are less able to deal with this
thought, by distraction, acceptance etc. Heightened levels of anxiety also increase
their sensitivity to the thought and their catastrophisation of it. However if you repeat the obsessional thought
then the client doesn’t get reciprocally increased levels of anxiety as the
behavioural model would indicate.
Another critique of the behavioural account is that there are
some clients as much as 20% who do not get any anxiety reduction in their
neutralising behaviours., indeed the anxiety reducing affects of compulsions
may be seen when clients replace any anxiety image with a more pleasant one (Marks
2000).
Behaviour Therapy for OCD
ERP
Meyer (1966) argued that if the client is faced with their
feared stimuli without doing their neutralising behaviour they will learn that
their feared consequence does not occur.
Exposure
Exposure just shows that anxiety tails off by itself and will
lead to habituation. So the fear response cannot be maintained at such a high
level and after a while it reduces and the patient learns that the feared
object does not have the feared consequence. The key to this is the encouragement and
support that the therapist gives to the client to face their feared
object. The therapist should avoid
reassurance but should say that the anxiety response will go of its own accord.
So exposure teaches that you can manage
the anxiety elicited by the feared object without the neutralising behaviours.
Response prevention
In response prevention, the client encounters the feared
object without performing anything of their neutralising behaviours, either
overt or covert.
Behavioural treatment of obsessions
20% of OCD clients have obsessive ruminations without overt
compulsions. This is not effectively targeted by ERP Rachman (1976).
Rather obsessional ruminations are
treated by thought stopping, paradoxical intention, thought satiation or
habituation training.
Thought stopping
Its efficacy remains doubtful , technique is to get the client
to have their unwanted thoughts, then shout stop, or use a rubber band, until
the thoughts start stopping. Thought
stopping is an ad hoc technique and has no underlying rationale apart from the
fact that it can work.
Paradoxical Intention
Here the client has the obsessional thought, and to
deliberately dwell on it, and elaborate it and exaggerate it in an effort to be
convinced of its validity. Very little research has been published on it
efficacy, apart from Solyom (1972)
Habituation Training
Clients hold onto their obsessions for 15 minutes without
trying to neutralise them. Effectively
thought exposure. Again not many studies
to support this one.
Audiotaped habituation training
One of the reasons why thought exposure may not work, is the
client wont fully expose themselves via covert safety behaviours, distraction,
thought stopping, thought replacement etc. and this is where the audio tape
comes in.
Empirical Status of Behaviour Therapy (ERP)
ERP has long been recognised as effective as a treatment for
OCD, with more severe cases then you use it in conjunction with pharmacotherapy.
13 to 20 sessions was considered the
optimum treatment length. ERP has in
studies been shown to be very effective 80% postreatement, although 25% of
people refuse ERP and another 3-12% will not complete treatment. This reduces the figure to 36%.. Also the type of OCD client
used in these studies are cleaning and checking not the range of other OCD
distresses. ERP is most suitable for overt compulsions, but is relatively
ineffective for covert compulsions.
Who benefits from ERP?
Younger age at symptom and treatment onset leads to better
treatment gains. Lower income leads to worse outcomes. People with moderate to severe depression will
find ERP less effective. People who don’t
see their compulsions as excessive will show poor treatment outcome.
Chapter 5. Cognitive Appraisal Theories of OCD
Early cognitive appraisal theories of OCD
Beck didn’t consider CT appropriate for obsession and the
first time CT had clinical applicability to it was Salkovskis (1985).
Carr (1974) proposed
that obsessional states are characterised by an abnormally high subjective
estimate of the probability that unfavourable outcomes will occur. Compulsive rituals then develop to reduce
this anxiety, so the difference with the behaviourists is that the latter see
classical conditioning associating the conditioned stimulus with the conditioned
response, whereas the cognitivists see it as thinking errors that do this.
Thus anxiety becomes a product of probability * harm, which
in OCD is high as there is a high probability the client thinks that it will
happen, and they have low estimation of their ability to cope with it. Cognitive compulsions will occur when an
appropriate threat reducing behaviour is not available.
The initial thinking errors of overestimation of threat and
underestimation of ability to cope can be understood as forming out of some
prior maladaptive beliefs:
1.
It is necessary to be perfect
2.
Mistakes should be punished
3.
One has the power to prevent terrible outcomes
by magical rituals or ruminative thinking
4.
Certain thoughts are unacceptable as they either
create or show that you want aversive outcomes
5.
It is easier and more effective to engage in
neutralising activities than to confront ones feelings
6.
Feelings of loss of control and uncertainty are
intolerable
There is a relation between the faulty primary and secondary
appraisals to feelings of loss of control and uncertainty.
Contemporary cognitive behavioural theories
The appraisal theory
is key to current cognitivists. This is firstly an ego dystonic
thought\image is had=>misinterpretation of this, that means it will happen,
or I will do it=>anxiety=>neutralisation=>short term +feeling of
control, -anxiety long term increase levels of fear of the intrusion and
increasing of the neutralisation
Salkovskis’s inflated responsibility model
Description of the Model
Unwanted intrusive thoughts
Unwanted thoughts are common to all people and may represent
part of a problem solving mechanisms that generate ideas out of our current
concerns. However having had the thought
we then need to work out if we need to do something about it, and may well be
compelling , if we perceive the thought to be useless then it is ignored.
Inflated responsibility
The difference between a normal intrusive thought and an
obsessional one does not lie in its content, frequency or uncontrollability but
rather on how we interpret it. Intrusive
cognitions are emotionally neutral to start off with but gain emotional
significance depending on a person’s prior experience and the context of the
thoughts. A key assumption is that it is
not the obsession per se that causes the problem but the interpretation of
it. Again here is the major difference
with the behaviourists who see the conditioning of the obsession as the problem,
where the cognitivists see the interpretation of the obsession as the problem.
The inflated responsibility comes through having the belief
that through ones actions, ones rituals one can prevent something bad
happening. Having this belief then when
an aversive thought happens that signifies personal responsibility then the
following sequence happens:
·
The intrusion is associated with increased
discomfort and anxiety
·
The intrusion gains greater salience
·
Neutralising responses are initiated in an effort to escape
responsibility
Inflated responsibility can focus either on the occurrence or
the content of the thought. The occurrence might suggest I am losing my mind.
If the content is that of responsibility I might vomit, get sick and die, then
the person becomes responsible to try to stop this.
Salkovskis argues that it is inflated responsibility that
distinguishes OCD from other anxiety disorders.
So when a person checks the freezer to ensure that no-one is
trapped in there, which on one level she doesn’t believe, she does this to
alleviate an elevated sense of responsibility.
Neutralisation
The neutralising behaviour in this model is to neutralised
the feeling of responsibility for the action, this in turn leads to a decrease
in the levels of discomfort. The neutralising behaviours also prevent the
patients from processing any evidence that would disconfirm their inferences of
responsibility for preventing highly improbable frightening events.
Overcontrol of mental activity
Another consequence of responsibility appraisals is that
individuals with OCD will try too hard to exert control over their intrusive
thoughts. The trouble with thought
suppression is it will heighten distress through:
1.
Changing the content of conscious thoughts
2.
It will result in failure and increase the sense
of uncontrollability
3.
It will increase the salience of thoughts
dealing with harm
4.
It prevents disconfirmation of the belief that
harm must be prevented
Obsessional problems are the result of people trying too
hard to prevent harm from happening.
Biased cognitive processing
Salkovskis argues that certain logical errors are often seen
in OCD and are the product of
pre-existing OCD beliefs.
1.
Responsibility bias
a.
The bias of conflating any personal influence on
that outcome, with responsibility for that outcome
2.
Absence of omission bias
a.
Most individuals believe there is less
responsibility involved in failing to act as opposed to situations where commissioning
an act could bring about negative consequences. Individuals with OCD do not
make this distinction.
3.
Misinterpretation of personal agency
a.
Individuals with OCD often mistakenly assume
they can foresee possible harmful outcomes as such it triggers sense of
responsibility to do something to prevent this negative outcome
4.
Thought action fusion
5.
Errors of decision making
a.
The individual have no idea when to stop their
compulsion the criteria for knowing when the ritual is complete may be vague,
highly subjective and open to considerable variation
Dysfunctional Assumptions
Salkovskis views vulnerability to OCD in terms of
pre-existing assumptions that are triggered by the occurrence of unwanted
intrusive thoughts and give rise to the cognitive biases and appraisals of responsibility. These beliefs are
1.
Responsibility beliefs (not trying to prevent
harm to self or others is equivalent to causing the harm)
2.
Thought action fusion (having a thought is like
performing the action)
3.
Thought control beliefs(one can and should
exercise control of one’s mental activity)
4.
Neutralisation beliefs (one should neutralise in
order to prevent possible harm from occurring to others)
Salkovskis proposes 5 pathways
that may lead to development of maladaptive responsibility
1.
A generalised sense of responsibility for
preventing threat that is encouraged in childhood
2.
Exposure to rigid or extreme codes of conduct
3.
Childhood experiences such as overindulgence
which shield them from assuming responsibility, which leads the child to
thinking they are incompetent which leads to increased sensitivity to ideas of
responsibility
4.
Incident involving action or inaction that leads
to a serious misfortune to self or other
5.
Incident involving person erroneously assume that
their thoughts, action or inactions contributed to a serious misfortune
In addition to these distal factors there are some proximal
ones too:
1.
Experience of systematic criticism
2.
Sudden increase in responsibility
3.
Critical incident involving real or perceived
responsibility
Empirical Status
Inflated responsibility is one of the most extensively
researched of the cognitive constructs of obsessional states. It rests
on 4 hypothesis
Hypothesis 1
Inflated responsibility appraisals are the core feature of
all obsessional thinking. Tests show a strong correlation of this for people
with compulsive cleaning and checking but less so with people with intrusive
thoughts around sex and aggression. Indeed inflated responsibility only seems
active around certain negative events, not positive events. So whilst OCD clients overall have a high
level of belief in inflated responsibility, it is situationally active, and it doesn’t
apply to all OCD subtypes.
Hypothesis 2
Inflated responsibility for harm is a distinct cognitive
construct that is specific to obsessional thinking. Here is seems that inflated responsibility is
most strongly linked to compulsive checking and contamination.
Hypothesis 3
It is hypothesised that higher perceived levels of
responsibility will lead to an increased urge to neutralise heightened
discomfort. Whilst some manipulation of
responsibility showed the tests outcome, it was seen as hard to manipulate the
responsibility for compulsive cleaners. What did come up is there was a
correlation between inflated responsibility and perfectionism. So where this leaves us is that is it
perfectionism, or the estimation of threat as opposed to inflated
responsibility that leads to the compulsions
Hypothesis 4
The neutralisation of an obsession will result in an
increase in the frequency and salience of an obsession
Ranchman’s misinterpretation of significance theory
Description of the model
Rachman asserts that a normal intrusive thought is misinterpretation
as a personally important and threatening phenomenon. As with Salvoskis intrusive thoughts are seen
as an everyday experience that turn into an obsession through misinterpretation.
Misinterpretation of significance
The misinterpretation involves that the intrusive thought is
an indicator about one’s character that could lead to very negative consequences:
1.
Losing control
2.
Harming others
3.
Acting violently
4.
Making mistakes
5.
Causing accidents, sickness or injury
Pure avoidance can sometimes manage obsessional thoughts and
no compulsions are seen. So pure external avoidance and no internal avoidance.
Rachman cites misinterpretation of significance in 5
dimensions
1.
Importance: the intrusion is seen as meaningful
2.
Personalised: the significance of my thought is
that it is of particular importance to me
3.
Ego-Alien: the content of the thought is
dystonic
4.
Potential consequences: the thought is seen to
be leading to action\consequences no matter how unlikely
5.
Serious consequences: the thought will lead to
serious consequences
A thought will only
become obsessional when the intrusive thought is contrary to some very strongly
held beliefs, so highly religious, blasphemous intrusion.; People are more
likely to make catastrophic misinterpretation of thoughts when they are
depressed.
Frequency and persistence of intrusive thoughts
Rachman cites two factors. Firstly the increase in personal
significance, the higher the ego dystonic
factor then the greater number of neutral stimuli will be trigger distressing
thoughts. Secondly internal
factors of anxiety, can trigger intrusive thoughts such as I’m losing control, I’m
going mad etc. The obsession takes hold
as avoidance and compulsions prevent disconfirmation of the perceived
catastrophic consequences of the obsession.
Lack of control over ones obsessions is misinterpreted as therefore I
have no control over my actions. Again
the level of anxiety is interpreted to mean that there is something significant
and to be feared about the intrusion, that they have significance.
Other cognitive processes
TAF clients see the thought and action as morally equivalent
or that the thought makes the action more likely. Two types of TAF, probability TAF if I think
it it becomes more likely to happen and moral TAF that to think something has
the same moral significance as doing it.
Having a TAF aspect is a significant factor in someone’s ability to
develop OCD. Inflated responsibility may be both a cause and effect of TAF.
Neutralisation
Neutralisation is defined as an attempt to put right or
cancel an obsession, or prevent an obsessions negative outcome happening. Neutralisation or safety behaviour says
because my feared belief is true therefore I need to do x, thus it repeats the
belief in x repeatedly Again thought
control is seen as an aspect of neutralisation, where the intrusive thought
happens and neutralisation of thought control is used and fails and
paradoxically has the enhancement and rebound effect, therefore increasing the
intensity and frequency of the thought. ,
Cognitive vulnerability
Rachman notices that OCD clients show catastrophic
misinterpretation when faced with ego dystonic thoughts. The pathways to this
are considered to be:
1.
Moral perfectionism
2.
Pre-existing cognitive beliefs and biases, e.g.
immoral thoughts are as bad as immoral actions
3.
Depression, this may increase the tendency to
heightened negative evaluations of events
4.
High trait anxiety, i.e. high anxiety proneness.
People who react with anxiety to a wide range of stimuli, will experience more
intrusive thoughts
Cognitive theory of compulsive checking
Rachman proposes that
individuals perceive a heighted sense of responsibility to prevent harm
but are unsure if they have adequately prevented harm. However complete certainty that something
hasn’t happened , or won’t happen is impossible. Checking behaviour temporarily
reduces anxiety but again it reinforces the belief that underpins it. Checking
repeatedly reduces the confidence in any individual check, the concomitant
anxiety also clouds the mind so that memory is impaired. Again because they are more focussed on the
emotional reaction and the threat again they remember less the detail of their
checking which reduces the impact of the check.
Checking increases the sense of personal responsibility by showing you
must do something to prevent the feared outcome, I am personally
responsible. Checking again will
increase the level of perceived probability of the feared outcome.
The treatment for checking is to
1.
Challenge the belief that one has a special
responsibility to protect oneself from harm
2.
Change the misinterpretation of ones checking behaviour,
that it prevents harm,
3.
Change the understanding of poor memory, i.e.
that it means that you aren’t safe as you can’t remember
Empirical Status
Hypothesis 1
Ranchman’s key hypothesis is that there is a catastrophic misinterpretation of personal
responsibility involving threat.
Research suggests that the level of significance of an intrusive thought
is correlated to the extent of ego-dystonia.
There is empirical evidence that OCD clients overestimate the probability
and effect of negative events and are consequently lower risk taking
individuals. However some research has
shown that it is the perceived ability to cope that is most significant in the
development of OC D symptoms and not the perceived probability of threat.
Hypothesis 2
Rachmon hypothesised that certain cognitive biases are
indicative of OCD symptoms, so TAF and inflated responsibility. TAF seems to have a strong correlation with religiosity.
TAF probability generally tends to have a stronger correlation with OCD than
does TAF morality, with the exception of blasphemous intrusive ego dystonic
thoughts.
Summary
Misinterpretation of significance is significant with the
development of OCD although it can also be seen in other disorders. TAF again is significant in OCD but then it
is also present within GAD.
The obsessissive compulsive cognitions working group
Description of the model
The group clarified three terms:
1.
Intrusion
a.
Unwanted thoughts\images that intrude into
consciousness are called intrusions when they reach clinical severity
2.
Appraisal
a.
Are the interpretation of the meaning of
intrusions
3.
Assumptions
a.
Relatively enduring beliefs that are pan
situational
Six belief domains of OCD
1.
Inflated responsibility
a.
That one can prevent negative outcome
2.
Overimportance of thoughts
a.
The mere presence of a thought indicates that it
is important
3.
Overestimation of threat
4.
Importance of controlling thoughts
5.
Intolerance of uncertainty
6.
Perfectionism
a.
Belief that there is a perfect solution to every
problem and deviance from this can have serious consequences
Empirical status
Intolerance of uncertainty and the need for thought controls
seemed to have some specificity to OCD.
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