What OCD Really Is

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterised by unwanted, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that trigger anxiety, followed by mental or physical behaviours (compulsions) aimed at reducing that anxiety.

I agree with conventional theory that OCD thoughts are irrational and don’t reflect anything true. The content isn’t meaningful — it’s just the shape the anxiety happens to take.

Where I disagree with conventional theory is the idea that the mind is malfunctioning. I argue that the mind is not malfunctioning; instead, something else is malfunctioning, which is causing the mind to generate the irrational thoughts.

So your mind is not broken.

OCD, then, is best understood as a symptom.

OCD shows up as intrusive thoughts and the anxiety they create, but these are only the visible part of a process that begins deeper in the system. To understand OCD properly, we need to look at what’s driving that process underneath.

At the core of OCD is a body carrying more stress or trauma than it can efficiently handle. When the system is overloaded, it can’t maintain its usual functioning, and the intrusive thoughts are simply the alarm signal that overload creates.

Intrusive thoughts grab attention instantly, which is why the alarm mainly shows up in this form. A thought can’t be ignored, numbed, or medicated away in the way physical discomfort can, so it becomes the quickest way for an overloaded system to get the person’s attention.

When an intrusive thought appears, it feels urgent and important, even though it isn’t. That sense of urgency pushes a person to avoid the thought and the anxiety it brings — by distracting themselves, trying to suppress it, or doing something that feels 'safer' in the moment. These responses are completely understandable, but they unintentionally keep the alarm active, which is why OCD feels so persistent.

When someone avoids the anxiety, the person doesn’t get to learn that the danger is false. So the next time the alarm appears, it often feels stronger. This isn’t because the thought is meaningful or dangerous; it’s simply because the anxiety wasn’t allowed to pass.

Over time, this pattern becomes entrenched: the alarm appears, the anxiety feels overwhelming, and avoidance brings short term relief but makes the alarm return even stronger. This repeated loop is what people often describe as the OCD cycle — a pattern that can make the thoughts feel constant and intrusive, even though nothing dangerous is actually happening.

As this pattern continues, it starts to shape how a person thinks and reacts. The alarm begins to show up more quickly, the anxiety feels more immediate, and avoidance becomes the automatic response. Over time, this creates the sense of being stuck in a constant battle with your own thoughts, even though the pattern is being driven by the same harmless alarm repeating itself.

Conventional approaches to OCD focus on stopping the thoughts. This does bring real relief in the short term, but it doesn’t address the underlying overload that causes the alarm in the first place, which is why the cycle eventually returns.

This is why OCD can seem to shift from one thought to another, even when the original fear has faded. The specific thoughts aren’t the real issue — they’re just the form the alarm happens to take. Until the underlying overload is addressed, the mind keeps generating new alarms, each one feeling just as urgent as the last.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is extremely effective at easing the symptoms of this cycle. It teaches you how to face the thoughts instead of avoiding them, which causes the thoughts to reduce or even go away for a while. But because CBT deals with the symptoms rather than the underlying cause, the relief it brings is often temporary. It can make it seem like the OCD is gone, but because the deeper cause hasn’t been resolved, the OCD returns in the future — sometimes years down the line, even after a long stretch of feeling completely fine.

However, CBT is still the first vital stage in recovery. It gives you the headspace and stability you need before you can work on the deeper cause. Many people start with CBT to reduce the immediate pressure of the cycle, and then move into deeper therapy once they’re no longer overwhelmed by the symptoms. If you want a clearer explanation of how CBT works with OCD, I’ve written a separate page that walks through it in more detail.

Psychoanalysis is a type of therapy that works on the deeper cause of OCD. Once the immediate pressure has eased, you finally have enough mental space to look at what created the overload in the first place. This stage isn’t about the thoughts themselves, but about dealing with the stress or trauma that originally triggered the alarm. When these underlying patterns are understood and processed, the system no longer needs to produce intrusive thoughts to release the pressure. If you want a more in-depth explanation of how this deeper work unfolds, I’ve written a separate page that walks through Psychoanalysis clearly.

To really understand what both therapies are trying to fix, it’s best to read the pages on the brain, the conscious mind, and the subconscious mind first, as they explain what OCD actually is in more detail. But you can still benefit from the CBT and Psychoanalysis pages without them.

The next page is about the brain – click the below button