The Conscious mind

The conscious mind is where our intelligence sits, and therefore is the part of us that is able to solve complicated or relatively complicated problems. You could say this is the adult part of the mind

All the thoughts that the conscious mind generates are ‘wanted’. This means it is up to you what thoughts you want think about, and also how long you think about them for

At this point you probably realise that OCD thoughts do not come from the conscious mind, as OCD thoughts are always unwanted

The conscious mind can instruct parts of the body to act in ways that are therapeutically beneficial. That is, when you come to do therapy for OCD it will be the conscious mind that is doing what the therapist suggests (more about that in the sections on CBT and Psychoanalysis)

The conscious mind experiences feelings/emotions. When the brain (amygdala) releases anxiety into the body, it is the conscious mind that experiences that anxiety

The conscious mind has a slow and narrow connection to the brain. That is, if that connection was through a cable, then thoughts from the conscious mind go to the brain in a slow manner. Also, the cable is narrow, so the conscious mind can only send a limited number of thoughts to the brain at any one time

Just to note that for most people, the conscious mind doesn’t exist until around the age of eight or nine, and this is why it is really difficult to explain things to children who are seven or younger, as their intelligence/problem solving skills haven’t really arrived yet.

Also, some OCD sufferers think they are going crazy, as they constantly get thoughts that are crazy/irrational. The good news with OCD is that they are not going crazy. The conscious mind assesses whether thoughts are crazy or not, and so if you know the thought is crazy then your conscious mind is still working properly, and so you are not going crazy. In some other mental illnesses, the conscious mind is broken, or is so overwhelmed, that it cannot identify what is crazy or not, so if you have OCD things could be worse!!

I won’t explain anything more about the conscious mind, as the above covers all you need to know in regards to OCD.

In summary, the key points to remember are:

a) the conscious mind solves complicated or relatively complicated problems

b) that you control the thoughts that it generates

c) it experiences feelings/emotions

d) it is the part of us we use to recover from OCD

In the next section I will talk about the second part of the mind, the subconscious