Abstract
Background and objectives Control of obsessive thoughts in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) involves both avoidance and removal of undesirable intrusive thoughts. Thought suppression tasks tap both of these processes but experimental results have been inconsistent. Experimental tasks allowing more focused study of the processes involved in controlling intrusive thoughts may be needed. In two experiments, control over neutral, standardized intrusive and personal intrusive thoughts was investigated as participants attempted to replace them with neutral thoughts. Methods Non-selected university students (Experiment 1: N = 61) and university students scoring high and low on self-report measure of OC symptoms (Experiment 2: N = 40) performed a computerized thought replacement task. Results In experiment 1 replacing personal intrusive thoughts took longer than replacing neutral thoughts. Self-reports showed that intrusive thoughts were rated more difficult to replace and were associated with greater thought reoccurrence during replacement, larger emotional reaction and more discomfort. These results were largely replicated in experiment 2. Furthermore, the high OC symptom group experienced greater overall difficulty controlling thoughts on the replacement task, experienced more reoccurrences of personal intrusive thoughts, larger emotional reactions and discomfort associated with them, and felt a greater urge to remove them. Limitations All participants were non-clinical university students, and older adults with OCD should be tested. Conclusions The findings are in line with cognitive behavioural theories of OCD. They support the usefulness of thought replacement as a research paradigm to study thought control in OCD and possibly other psychological conditions characterized by repetitive thoughts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 506-515 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 19 Aug 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information: This research was supported by a grant 100633021 from the Icelandic Research Fund , awarded to Jakob Smári and Paul M. G. Emmelkamp and a grant from the Landspítali Scientific Research Fund , awarded to Ragnar P. Ólafsson, Jakob Smári and Paul M. G. Emmelkamp. This research is a part of the first author's doctoral thesis, supervised by the fourth, fifth and sixth authors. Parts of this data were presented in 2011 and 2012 at the 41st and 42nd Annual Congress of the European Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies in Reykjavík, Iceland, and Geneva, Switzerland.Other keywords
- Cognitive-behavioural theories
- Experimental investigation
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Thought control
- Thought suppression