Lesson 5 of 6 · What feeds it, and what to stop adding
One. Reassurance, from anybody
Asking again. Being told again. It is the most socially acceptable compulsion there is, because it looks like seeking knowledge and it involves other people who are being kind to you.
Reassurance works the way checking works. It brings the anxiety down now and raises the need for it later. The people giving it are usually doing so out of love and have no idea they are helping the loop along.
This is not only a clinical observation. One of the largest Arabic fatwa sites now declines questions of this kind as a matter of stated policy, and gives its reason: answering them feeds the illness rather than helping the person recover. They compare it to scratching an itch. They are not declining because a person in this pattern is beneath answering. They are declining because they judge it a matter for treatment. Reported here, not ruled on.
What the research says
A widely read religious reference site states that answering the questions of a person with this condition feeds the illness and barely helps them recover, and directs them to specialists. Reported because you may meet it, not because it settles anything.
Reported, not endorsed. The site states that responding to the person with obsessive compulsive disorder by answering his questions in fact feeds the illness in him and barely helps him recover. It directs the person to specialised psychological treatment, to cognitive behavioural therapy, and to medication where a doctor judges it appropriate, with recitation alongside the medical treatment rather than instead of it.
IslamQA. Why the site apologises for not answering questions about obsessive compulsive disorder, fatwa 411605. IslamQA, Arabic, islamqa.info/ar/answers/411605
Asking for reassurance works exactly like checking a lock: it lowers the distress now and keeps the doubt alive over time. That is why the relief never lasts as long as you expect it to.
Reassurance seeking behaves like overt checking. It lowers distress in the moment and keeps the doubt going over time.
Parrish CL, Radomsky AS (2010). Why do people seek reassurance and check repeatedly? An investigation of factors involved in compulsive behavior in OCD and depression. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 24(2), 211 to 222