5 ways compulsions can backfire (and how you can avoid them)

OCD can make compulsions seem like a great idea, telling us they’ll bring clarity and make us feel safe. But, in reality, the opposite is true: compulsions backfire, creating confusion and keeping us stuck in an endless cycle. Resisting compulsions takes practice, but it's possible—and worth it. Once you understand why OCD urges can feel so strong, you can practice pushing back. To help, OCD therapist Alegra Kastens, LMFT, is sharing 5 ways compulsions can backfire, and how you can learn to resist them: 🔄 Mental review • What it is: Replaying a past event, conversation, or action in your mind to try to gain certainty or ease discomfort tied to it. • Why it backfires: Research shows that repeatedly recalling and reviewing memories actually makes them less clear to us. This can lead to “false memories” that are perceived as evidence of an intrusive thought being true. 👀 Mental checking • What it is: Taking a read on your own emotions or bodily sensations to try to confirm that you're feeling the "right" way about something. • Why it backfires: Repeatedly checking on our feelings chips away at, and ultimately erodes, what we are naturally feeling. It can even produce the feeling sensation you were checking for in the first place, which then feels like confirmation that the intrusive thought is true. 💻 Compulsive research online • What it is: Searching forums, threads, AI chatbots, or search engines for information that will resolve an unwanted doubt for good. • Why it backfires: Because the internet holds endless, often contradictory information, this search tends to turn up something that reads as "evidence" that the intrusive thought is true, which increases anxiety. 😰 Confession • What it is: Telling someone about an unwanted thought in an attempt to alleviate the guilt or anxiety attached to it. • Why it backfires: Confessing ends up reinforcing the doubt or fear by attaching meaning to it. It can also lead to a new spiral of worry about how the person you confessed to now sees you. 🌀 Hypothesizing • What it is: Deliberately imagining a scenario tied to an intrusive thought to test how you'd react to it. • Why it backfires: Our bodies can respond to an imagined scenario regardless of whether or not we actually desire it to happen, so this often backfires by producing the very reaction that the person feared, plus added guilt for having "brought it on" themselves. Compulsions create confusion, not clarity. They keep you stuck, not safe. It’s difficult to believe this when the urge to carry out the compulsion is strong. The pull is akin to not scratching a very itchy itch, but it’s worth resisting for long-term symptom relief. Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy, the most evidence-based treatment for OCD, can help eliminate compulsive rituals. If you’re struggling with compulsions like these, our licensed therapists deeply understand OCD and are specialty-trained in treating OCD with ERP. They’ll work with you to create a treatment plan personalized to your unique needs and help you regain your life from OCD. You can book a free 15-minute call with our team to learn more and get started: https://learn.nocd.com/app-book-a-call