Sexual OCD: Signs and Symptoms
OCD can manifest in a wide array of sub-types, including sexually-based thoughts. Sexual OCD obsessions might involve the person experiencing obsessive thoughts about sexual themes that can range from mild to violent ones. These thoughts and fears are unwanted and intrusive. As a result of the obsessions and fears, a person might engage in a compulsive behavior in order to get relief from these obsessions. Obsessions could include intrusive thoughts, images, urges, doubts and fears. Sexual OCD is an overwhelming and uncomfortable sub type for someone that could make them feel hesitant to wanting to start therapy. Confusion can arise in seeing the difference between sexual fantasies and sexual obsessions. Sexual fantasies might provide pleasure while obsessions and fears cause distress. A person might feel disgust, anger, shame, embarrassment about these thoughts. As a licensed therapist specializing in OCD, trained in ERP, I am able to help improve your understanding of this sub type and to implement the effective change.
Common Sexual OCD Obsessions:
Fear of being attracted to a family member, animal, dead/inanimate objects, or children
Far of committing a sexually heinous act
Fear of becoming violent during sex
Intrusive thoughts or images about distressing sexual acts with undesirable entities, such as children or animals
Common Sexual OCD Compulsions:
Performing mental rituals to replace unacceptable sexual thoughts with acceptable sexual thoughts
Avoiding sex so they do not harm their partner
Avoiding situations where they may interact or encounter a subject of their intrusive thoughts
Mentally reviewing past sexual behaviors for signs of perversion or depravity
Checking for genital arousal when encountering or interacting with the subject of their obsessions
Treatment: Exposure Response Prevention:
ERP is a collaborative approach that you and I will do together. Exposures are done in a gradual sense that we will develop together early in sessions. We will develop a list of fears/obsessions/exposures in a hierarchical fashion. ERP will teach you how to cope by approaching fears rather than avoiding them. Success with ERP starts with a gradual approach. Starting with facing obsessions/fears that cause the lowest level of distress. By approaching ERP in a gradual manner, we can continue to learn and practice through each exposure effective response prevention and make progressive progress. We do not want the distress to get too high at the start that we are not able to use effective response prevention. Having a solid foundation of response prevention and plans of exposures will ensure we are following evidence based protocols.
As a licensed mental health therapist trained in ERP, I will assist you through the exposures and how to implement effective response prevention measures. If you feel that OCD has had a negative impact on your life, you might consider counseling and ERP to learn how to handle it more effectively. Please feel free to reach out for a free consultation, where we can discuss impacts of OCD and benefits of counseling/ERP.
