Formal Cognitive Therapy: A New Treatment for OCD

The occurrence of persistent, intrusive, anxiety-provoking thoughts (obsessions) is one of the defining features of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Research has also shown that most healthy people occasionally experience transient intrusive thoughts (Rachman & deSilva, 1978; Salkovskis & Harrison, 1984). Unlike those with OCD, however, healthy individuals can dismiss such thoughts and do not experience them as particularly distressing. Such observations led researchers to hypothesize that it is not the experience of intrusive thoughts per se that is pathological; but rather the way in which patients interpret such thoughts that leads to the pathological anxiety, depression, and guilt that is characteristic of OCD (eg, Freeston, Rhéaume, & Ladouceur, 1996; Rachman, 1993, 1997; Salkovskis, 1985, 1989; Wilhelm, 2000).