According to the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, an obsession is a “mental disturbance produced by a fixed idea” and a “fixed or recurring idea that conditions a certain attitude.” From psychiatry it is determined lobsession such as recurring thoughts, impulses or images that the subject considers to be intruders and that cause you significant discomfort. For that reason, the person tries to ignore or suppress these thoughts through rituals or obsessive acts.
We all go through times when an idea or thought becomes recurring and uncontrollable. It usually happens in difficult, anxious, or stressful periods. This is completely normal, although sometimes there is a risk that these thoughts turn into obsessions. A concern is distinguished from an obsession by the degree of intensity, frequency and duration. If these obsessions become chronic and interfere with the person’s day-to-day life, then it will have become a pathology.
The brain is always active and continually creates content. It is about content produced by the activity of basic cognitive functions such as perception, attention and memory. With these contents we elaborate the thoughts, dreams and internal dialogue. If the information is processed in an inappropriate way, loading it with threats, concern increases and the onset of obsession is favored. The same happens in the case of negative self-talk, which becomes a difficult loop to stop.
Obsessions cause severe discomfort with outbursts of anger, feelings of frustration, anxiety, and helplessness. Other problems are those that have to do with the time spent on this obsession, distorting the day-to-day life of the sufferer or the inability to make decisions when faced with an insurmountable doubt when turning a decision a thousand times over. If it could extract something positive from obsessions it is precisely that, by reviewing reality so much, the possibility of error is reduced, although it does not compensate for the amount of negative effects that it entails.
Most frequent obsessions
- Fear of disease transmission
- Need to order things
- Obsessive doubt
- Sexual fantasies
- Aggressive impulses
Recommendations
- See a professional in psychology or psychiatry, as recommended by medical professionals
- Exercise and be physically active
- Recognize the origin of thoughts
- Write the thoughts
- Allow them to flow instead of trying to control them to help decrease their intensity
- Meditate and perform relaxation exercises