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Introduction |
Unconscious
Guilt | Healing
Guilt through a Holy Lifestyle |
Christian Cognitive-Behavioral
Treatment |
Summary
In regard to the treatment
of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), you have a profound choice to make.
You can accept the atheistic premises of modern science and surrender your
body and soul to the belief that OCD is simply a matter of brain chemistry
and therefore “something out of your control.”
Or, you can look to the
psychological-spiritual core of the problem and do something about
it.
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As I say on the
page about depression and anxiety, we know from
scientific research that the brain and the mind have a mutual influence on
each other. So, even though mental disorders may have a
material cause in brain neurochemistry, they can also
have a
final cause in psychological activity. Or, said in
another way, psychological conflicts can lead
to disruptions of brain chemistry, and resolving those conflicts psychologically
can return brain chemistry to normal. |
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Unconscious
Guilt
In this regard, psychoanalytic
research into early infant development has shown that experiences of rage,
and subsequent feelings of guilt, happen to us all right from early infancy.
Every parent will make mistakes in empathic bonding with a child, and every
child will feel emotionally hurt by those mistakes and will crave the
satisfaction of revenge: to hurt the other “as
I have been hurt.” And some infants, lacking a social structure of deep
faith and trust in God’s mercy, will feel
guilty about having this desire for
revenge.
Therefore, psychoanalytic theory
and clinical practice tell us that OCD, at its core, is a neurotic way of
coping with feelings of guilt. It’s similar
to Lady Macbeth, in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, crying, “Out,
damned spot!” as she tries compulsively to rub the stain of Duncan’s
murder from her
hands.[1]
Now, unlike Lady Macbeth, you
may not have actually killed someone, but the
unconscious
motive for your compulsive rituals can be found in obsessive thoughts or
mental images of your wanting to hurt someone because he or she has injured
you, insulted you, obstructed you, or hurt you in some other emotional, physical,
or material way.
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To someone untrained
in the psychology of the
unconscious,
it may seem difficult to understand this logically, but whatever you are
afraid of doing is what you unconsciously
desire. Maybe you have to check the stove
in endless repetition to make sure you have turned it off, because you’re
afraid of starting a fire. Well, unconsciously, you probably desire to set
the whole house on fire to get revenge for having been cheated by someone.
Maybe you have to wash your hands in endless repetition because they feel
unclean. Well, unconsciously, maybe you desire to use those hands to strangle
someone who has abused you in some way. Maybe you have to avoid stepping
on any cracks in the sidewalk lest your mother break her back. Well,
unconsciously, maybe you desire your mother to break her back because she
has been mean to you or critical of you in some way. And on and on it
goes. |
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Most likely you don’t like
to talk about these thoughts and images, or the suppressed desire for
revenge—perhaps going all the way back to
infancy—that drives them, because you find them so repugnant that you
want to neutralize them before they reach full conscious
awareness.[2]
In the OCD response to guilt,
therefore, you attempt to keep your guilt secret and to resolve it through
your own superstitious efforts. You create
rituals, and you unconsciously make mistakes in carrying them out, and you
feel guilty about it all. But it’s all an artificially created
guilt, taken in controlled doses, that serves to hide the real guilt
of your anger at persons who have hurt you
somehow.
As such, this response to guilt
is completely opposed to the Catholic sacrament of Reconciliation in which,
through contrition, you openly confess
your guilt in order to receive forgiveness and absolution from Christ himself,
through the action of the Church, and through
trust you accept His unbounded
mercy.
Healing Guilt
through a Holy Lifestyle
For OCD treatment to be in harmony
with Christianity, then, the treatment must not just suppress the symptoms,
it must teach you to live a holy lifestyle
purged of vindictive hostility. Rather than live in guilty fear about your
defiant fantasies, you must learn to face the anger
behind the fantasies—and to nip it in the
bud.
Emotional
Hurt
Endeavor, therefore, to recognize
anything—large or small—that someone does to irritate you or insult
you. Notice the feeling and acknowledge what has been done; resist the defensive
urge to push away these feelings and hide them from yourself. Then
bear the hurt in perfect faith, patiently and quietly,
with humility. Bear the pain just as Christ bore
the cross, patiently and quietly in perfect faith, without vindictive resentment.
Trusting that God will protect you in everything, you can return a blessing
to any insult, and you can pray for those who hurt
you.[3]
Desire for
the Holy
Note that the ability to pray
for those who hurt you depends on your being able to distance yourself from
a secular world that literally feeds upon hostility
and disobedience—anger on anger, hatred
on hatred, lawsuit on lawsuit, weapon on weapon, death on death—enslaving
you to a subversive lust for anger and
revenge.
The more that you are able to
desire the holy, rather than desire physical,
worldly pleasures, and the more that you can pray
constantly, rather than fill your head with worldly
entertainment, the more progress you will make
in overcoming your unconscious slavery to anger and revenge, and the more
progress you will make in overcoming your superstitious attempts to wash
away your hidden anger.
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AN
EXAMPLE
Transient thoughts
(that is, fantasies) of hurting someone are actually very common—so
common, in fact, that they could be called “normal” human responses
to feeling irritated by someone.
For example, a mother holding her infant while standing at the edge of Niagara
Falls could suddenly think of throwing the child into the water. Now, such
a thought could be an
unconscious
reaction to the mother’s irritation at the responsibility of caring
for her new child.
But does having the thought mean that the mother is actually in danger
of carrying it out? Not at all. The thought, like any fantasy, is just the
result of a juxtaposition of images in the moment—the water and the
infant—that suggest the possibility that the infant could be
thrown into the water.
So, if the mother were to interpret the fantasy, she could say to herself,
“Ah, yes, a child is a lot of responsibility, isn’she? And, with
Christ’s help and guidance, I can accept the task.”
But if the mother fears the fantasy, she can deceive herself into believing
that the fantasy never occurred, and she can develop obsessive-compulsive
defenses to protect herself from the guilt of feeling resentment toward
her child. And so, later that night, she might feel the compulsive need to
spend hours rearranging the clothes in her closet according to the most elaborate
of rituals, to appease the nagging belief that if she doesn’t do
it—and do it perfectly—her baby will die. |
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Christian
Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment
First of all, in order to teach
yourself what a holy lifestyle is all about,
you should follow the spiritual counsels on this
website that will turn your attention away from a corrupt social world toward
a life of prayer and faith
and acts of service to others, all grounded in total trust in Christ.
Anyone can afford to follow these counsels; they not only have no financial
cost, they actually save you money.
Second, every time you feel the
urge to perform a compulsive act, remind yourself that no one will die just
because you do not perform a ritual. When that inner “voice” responds,
“Come on, John. I’m only warning you for your own good. Be reasonable
and go back and complete the ritual right now, or you’ll be sorry!”
say what Christ Himself said when hearing something contrary to His mission:
“Get behind Me, Satan! You are an obstacle to Me. You are thinking not
as God does, but as human beings do” (Matthew 16:23).
Then recite Psalm 51 (Have
mercy on me . . . ). You may end up saying that psalm
150 times a day, but amen, amen, I say to you that when said in true contrition
for a compulsive act, rather than as a compulsive act, it’s far
better than washing your hands 150 times a day.
Finally, keep a detailed record
of the thoughts and mental images that trigger your compulsive behavior.
At least once a week take that record of obsessive thoughts and mental images
to church and and confess them out loud to a priest—to find real relief
for your guilt. (Of course, be sure to let the priest know why you have that
list—and why you’re doing all this—in the first
place.)
The point here, then, is to realize
that no matter how ugly your thoughts and fantasies may seem to you,
they can be interpreted psychologically and forgiven
sacramentally.
Summary
With practice, as you learn to
live a genuine Catholic life—detached from the
world, trusting totally in God, chaste in
body and heart, free from all
anger and desire for
revenge—your ability to give a blessing for
a hurt will mean that you have no ugly thoughts and fantasies to
fear, and therefore no guilt to
hide. And from then on, whenever any fantasies
arise in your mind, you can see them not as ugly and fearful, but simply
as warnings that someone has hurt you somehow. Then, knowing you’ve
been hurt, and feeling the pain, you can
forgive
the person who hurt you, and you can turn to God
in faith and prayer:
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When the just
cry out, the LORD hears
and rescues them from all distress.
The LORD is close to the broken hearted,
saves those whose spirit is crushed.
Many are the troubles of the just
but the LORD delivers from them
all. |
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—Psalm 34:18-20 |
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Let the weak sinful soul
have no fear to approach Me, for even if it had more sins than there are
grains in the world, all would be drowned in the unmeasurable depths of My
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