Lesson 1 of 6 · What is actually happening
One thing to carry out of this lesson
The content of the thought is the least useful part of it. Two people with completely different obsessions are doing the same thing with them.
What the research says
Trained judges could not reliably sort patients' obsessions from ordinary intrusive thoughts by reading them. The difference was never in what the thought said, but in what happened afterwards.
Judges could not reliably sort the obsessions of patients from the ordinary intrusive thoughts of people without a diagnosis by reading the content. The difference was in what the thought did afterwards, not in what it said.
Rachman S, de Silva P (1978). Abnormal and normal obsessions. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 16(4), 233 to 248 doi