Reassurance Seeking Compulsion.
What is Reassurance Seeking?
In OCD, seeking reassurance is the need to check in with someone over and over again. The goal of seeking reassurance is to get certainty and make sure everything is OK. Seeking reassurance can become very addictive. A person might find themselves asking their partner for reassurance multiples times a week progressing to multiple times a day. A person seeking reassurance has the urge to continue to get that certainty that takes away the distress they are experiencing. Within the OCD cycle, engaging in a compulsion leads to reinforcement of the OCD cycle, making it stronger.
Reassurance seeking is a compulsive behavior. A person engages with a compulsion in order to get short term relief from their distress and obsessions. A person can seek reassurance from themselves or from other people. Reassurance can develop rapidly especially when the person I am seeking reassurance from gives me that reassurance. Say my partner is more than happy to give me reassurance multiple times a day because it takes away my distress, they are accommodating the OCD and keeping me stuck in my OCD cycle. I am not able to learn how to tolerate distress if my partner is willing to give me the relief and reassurance as soon as I ask. A person can seek reassurance for a number of issues whether its about their health, relationship, work, thoughts or fears.
Outside of OCD, getting reassurance is not necessarily good or bad. But done within the OCD cycle and used to get relief, we see it transform into a more damaging behavior that keeps a person stuck. When a person is seeking reassurance, they are looking for the other person to neutralize that distress of the uncertainty. It is normal for someone to come into therapy explaining that their supports are giving them reassurance. It is normal to want to give reassurance to a loved one rather than see them struggling. Those intentions are coming from a place of care and concern but as we learn to educate ourselves about OCD, we can learn to be better supports without feeding into OCD behaviors.
Providing Helpful Support:
In therapy, bringing in family, friends, or loved ones can be helpful so your supports learn how to be the most effective support to you. In the case of seeking reassurance, learning how to stop and not give into reassurance is going to help the person with their OCD.
Agreeing to stop: One of the first things a support can learn is to stop giving that person reassurance. This can be difficult especially when the person with OCD starts to exhibit higher distress when they do not get the reassurance. In ERP treatment, the person with OCD can learn better how to manage their distress without needing compulsions. The short term distress they will feel without the reassurance will be just that, short term distress. Distress that will eventually pass and lead to longer term relief. Agreeing to stop can look like not giving that person the reassurance they are looking for. I might respond with something more uncertain instead. For example I could say to my friend “Maybe you will get fired or maybe you will not get fired” rather than“Of course you won’t get fired they love you there!” . One gives the person the reassurance that they will not get fired while the other brings on the uncertainty that they could get fired but they also could not get fired. Bringing on a more realistic viewpoint towards their situation. You or anyone else does not know for 100% certainty if they will get fired or not, so we might as well highlight that uncertainty rather than it being used against them. In ERP treatment, skills and language can be learned to talk back to the OCD and not give into any more compulsions. Language that can used by supports or by the person dealing with the OCD.
Treatment for OCD:
Like all forms of OCD, the gold standard of treatment is exposure and response prevention (ERP). Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) looks at the idea that triggering situations and thoughts are at the core of OCD. Ongoing exposure to these triggers without engagement in rituals can reduce the severity felt. 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.
