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Areas › Worry and anxiety › Obsessions and compulsions
These thoughts sit at the far end from wanting. They horrify you, which is exactly why they stick to you. The work goes on what you have decided the thought says about you, not on rehearsing the scene, and anyone treating you should draw that line clearly rather than handling it like a fear of lifts.
Obsessive thoughts and compulsions respond well to a specific kind of therapy. What is here is for understanding them, not for treating them by yourself.
You will not be blamed if you make a mistake, only for what your hearts deliberately intend (Quran 33:5). What is weighed is the intention of the heart, and an unwanted thought is the opposite of intending.
الأحزاب
ٱدۡعُوهُمۡ لِأٓبَآئِهِمۡ هُوَ أَقۡسَطُ عِندَ ٱللَّهِۚ فَإِن لَّمۡ تَعۡلَمُوٓاْ ءَابَآءَهُمۡ فَإِخۡوَٰنُكُمۡ فِي ٱلدِّينِ وَمَوَٰلِيكُمۡۚ وَلَيۡسَ عَلَيۡكُمۡ جُنَاحࣱ فِيمَآ أَخۡطَأۡتُم بِهِۦ وَلَٰكِن مَّا تَعَمَّدَتۡ قُلُوبُكُمۡۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ غَفُورࣰ ا رَّحِيمًا
Name your adopted sons after their real fathers: this is more equitable in God’s eyes––if you do not know who their fathers are [they are your] ‘brothers-in-religion’ and proteges. You will not be blamed if you make a mistake, only for what your hearts deliberately intend; God is most forgiving and merciful
Qur’an 33:5read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A review of thought-action fusion and related beliefs concluded that they overlap heavily across the anxiety disorders rather than each belonging to one condition, so treating a thought as though it were an act is a widely shared habit of mind. That is useful to know here: the belief is common and it is workable. The review pulls together existing work rather than testing a treatment.
Vladan Starčević; David Berle (2006). Cognitive specificity of anxiety disorders: a review of selected key constructs. Depression and Anxiety doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The distress comes from the meaning you have given the thought, so the meaning is the part that has to move.
This is about thoughts that horrify you, and thoughts you find yourself wanting to act on are a different matter that needs saying out loud to someone today.
Some worries are perfectly reasonable, and settling them still will not settle you. Someone living where the storms come can build the kit, check the kit, and find the worry has quietly moved on to something else.
If the urge to arrange has to go somewhere, point it at something that can actually be finished. A kitchen drawer ends. A desk you keep re-sorting never does.
Offer choices rather than instructions. With a problem that runs on control, being told what to do gives that control somewhere to dig in.