![]() Picking up and putting down items a specific way.Engaging in superstitious behaviors, such as avoiding cracks on the sidewalk when walking or knocking on wood.Similarly, it is not uncommon for individuals to perform these rituals or routines at specific times of the day or days of the week. It is not uncommon for an individual to feel it necessary to repeat these rituals or routines multiple times until their OCD is satisfied (i.e., anxiety dissipates). Following specific routines or rituals.Repeating certain words, phrases, sounds, numbers or names.Belief that one must cancel out or neutralize “bad thoughts” or “bad memories” by thinking of or saying “good thoughts” or “good memories” to prevent negative consequences.Fear that failing to do certain things in a specific way will cause something bad to happen to oneself or others.Fear that failing to think or say certain words, phrases, sounds or numbers a specific number of times will cause harm to oneself or others.Other common obsessions and compulsions related to magical thinking, found in this article on magical thinking, could include: Common Obsessions of Magical Thinking OCD Example: If you have an intrusive sexual thought while holding a pen, the pen becomes “dirty” & anyone who touches the pen will also be “dirty.”.Thought-Object Fusion: the belief that thoughts and/or feelings can be transferred into objects, making them “contaminated.” For some, this could also “contaminate” others.Example: If you think a violent harm thought, you will lose control and act it out.Thought-Event Fusion: the belief that thoughts, feelings and impulses have the power to cause one to commit unwanted and undesirable actions.Example: If you think about a plane crash, a plane will crash.Thought-Action Fusion: the belief that a thought can cause a particular event to occur or means an event has already occurred.There are actually three main types of magical thinking, as identified by Adrian Wells in his book Metacognitive Therapy For Anxiety & Depression: Your words, your actions and your thoughts all must be done exactly in accordance with the rules of your Magical Thinking OCD. If you don’t do the ritual correctly, your OCD tells you, you risk the bad thing happening or the good thing not happening. Knocking on wood means you find wood and knock on it. ![]() The superstitious ritual is something they can adjust or live without, something they trust probably isn’t going to change the outcome of things one way or another.įor someone with OCD, there is no flexibility. What do you think separates plain old superstitions from Magical Thinking OCD? If you guessed the degree of flexibility that you feel you do or do not have when it comes to participating in the superstitious ritual, you’d be correct!įor someone without OCD, if they feel the urge to knock on wood yet are nowhere near wood, they will settle for knocking on plastic or metal, or they may just say the phrase without knocking on anything at all. ![]() (More on that later.) MAGICAL THINKING OCD SYMPTOMS The good news is that Magical Thinking OCD is just as treatable as any other form of OCD. Either way, you are driven to do everything you think is in your power to control those outcomes. Interestingly, the events you might be attempting to influence could be seen as two sides of the same superstitious coin: preventing “bad” outcomes and/or generating “good” outcomes. However, when this mental error is the foundation of all or most of your OCD, we can refer to your experience as Magical Thinking OCD. Magical thinking can be a type of cognitive distortion, or thought error, that you give into here and there without much consequence. That’s the “magic” part of magical thinking. Importantly, this belief occurs in the absence of concrete evidence demonstrating a link between you and any such events - in other words, there’s no actual evidence that anything you’ve thought actually has an impact in the real world. Sounding familiar? Technically, magical thinking happens when you believe your thoughts, ideas, wishes or actions directly influence events in the physical world. If you were to imagine superstitions on steroids, you would end up with Magical Thinking OCD. ![]() ![]() Have you ever knocked on wood? Made a wish then blown out birthday candles? Most, if not all, of us have engaged in some superstitious thoughts or actions such as these at some point in our lives. One of the interesting and invariably frustrating parts of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is its ability to take things that are commonplace in our daily lives - like hand washing, locking doors and list making, to name a few - and twist them into maddening rituals that just never seem to satisfy OCD’s impossible demands, no matter how hard a person tries. ![]()
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