Salkovskis Theory Of Obsessions

Obsessions are thoughts, images or impulses that resemble a piece of meat that we chew and chew and cannot swallow. All human beings, to a greater or lesser degree, have experienced them. In this article, we’ll talk about Salkovskis’s theory of obsessions

While it is true that there are people with a greater tendency to suffer from obsessions, they are still a normal phenomenon, typical of a developed brain. Therefore, we would fall into error if we conceptualized them as something pathological.

Having one type of intrusion or another does not define the person. They just appear. It’s similar to what happens when we dream: it ‘s normal to have dreams that don’t match our values ​​or way of thinking, but once we’re awake, we’re able to take them for granted and let them pass.

However, some people perform a process of merging with their own mental content. They give an importance and a value that these thoughts do not have.

In obsessive-compulsive disorder, it is normal for a person to believe that they are bad or that they will harm someone just because they had a thought that told them so.

Salkovkis, considering the above, presented one of the first cognitive formulations about anxiety and, specifically, about OCD.

Salkovskis’s theory: thoughts versus obsessions

In order to begin studying the processes we have discussed, Salkovskis, in 1985, proposed his cognitive theory. The author differentiates between automatic negative thoughts and obsessions.

An automatic negative thought is a subjective report that occurs under certain circumstances without being processed in depth (Rachman, 1981).

This last difference, the degree to which they agree with our belief system, is the most central. An obsession is disturbing and uncomfortable because it has to do with something that is very valuable to the person.

Salkovskis claims that obsessive thoughts function as a stimulus that can cause a particular kind of automatic thinking.

Available evidence shows that thought intrusions often occur in a non-clinical population without generating a high degree of discomfort.

This will only become a problem if they give rise to a series of automatic negative thoughts, through the interaction of unacceptable intrusions to the individual. Discomfort, therefore, depends on the specific meaning they have for that patient.

responsibility as a scheme

OCD patients often overestimate the limits of their responsibility. The slightest possibility of harm – real or imagined – becomes intolerable for the person, who will try to neutralize it by all means.

This tendency may be a consequence of “taking responsibility” early on.

This responsibility scheme, when the person is still very young, has little maturity and few means to manage this pressure, would have resulted in the formation of different assumptions/automatisms:

• Thinking about an action is the same thing as taking it.
• Failure to prevent damage is the same as causing that damage.
• Liability is not affected by other factors, such as the low probability of an event occurring.
• Not performing neutralization when an invasion occurs is like wanting to harm someone.
• A person must and can control their own thoughts.

guilt and responsibility

The automatic thoughts or images triggered by obsessions revolve around this responsibility: “If everything is wrong, it’s my fault.” This guilt occurs not only in reality, but also through imagined possibility. Just by thinking, a person feels responsible and bad.

It would be something akin to sin, simply by having a thought that could qualify as such. Therefore, the patient feels the need to end the suffering and guilt he is feeling, making different neutralizations in an attempt to find a solution.

Neutralizations, according to Salkovskis’ theory, are understood as attempts to avoid or reduce the possibility of being responsible for any damage that might be caused.

Based on this theory, the patient is invited to consider these invasions simply as “noise”, to diminish their importance, not to make a fusion between thought, their person and reality.

For this, in addition to cognitive therapy, it will be necessary to prevent the performance of rituals, thus managing to eliminate habits and beliefs about harm and personal responsibility.