General Many people experience the type of bad or unwanted<unk> s that people with more troubling<unk> s have, but most people can dismiss these<unk> s. For most people,<unk> s are a "fleeting annoyance". Psychologist Stanley Rachman presented a questionnaire to healthy college students and found that virtually all said they had these<unk> s from time to time, including<unk> s of sexual violence, sexual punishment, "unnatural" sex acts, painful sexual practices, blasphemous or obscene images,<unk> s of harming elderly people or someone close to them, violence against animals or towards children, and impulsive or abusive outbursts or utterances. Such<unk> s are universal among humans, and have "almost certainly always been a part of the human condition". When<unk> s occur with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), patients are less able to ignore the unpleasant<unk> s and may pay undue attention to them, causing the<unk> s to become more frequent and distressing. The suppression of<unk> s often cause these<unk> s to become more intense and persistent. The<unk> s may become obsessions that are paralyzing, severe, and constantly present, these might involve topics such as violence, sex, or religious blasphemy, among others. Distinguishing them from normal<unk> s experienced by many people, the<unk> s associated with OCD may be anxiety provoking, irrepressible, and persistent. How people react to<unk> s may determine whether these<unk> s will become severe, turn into obsessions, or require treatment.<unk> s can occur with or without compulsions. Carrying out the compulsion reduces the anxiety, but makes the urge to perform the compulsion stronger each time it recurs, reinforcing the<unk> s. According to Lee Baer, suppressing the<unk> s only makes them stronger, and recognizing that bad<unk> s do not signify that one is truly evil is one of the steps to overcoming them. There is evidence of the benefit of acceptance as an alternative to the suppression of<unk> s. In one particular study, those instructed to suppress<unk> s experienced more distress after suppression, while patients instructed to accept the bad<unk> s experienced decreased discomfort. These results may be related to underlying cognitive processes involved in OCD. However, accepting the<unk> s can be more difficult for persons with OCD. The possibility that most patients suffering from<unk> s will ever act on those<unk> s is low. Patients who are experiencing intense guilt, anxiety, shame, and are upset over these<unk> s are very different from those who actually act on them. The history of violent crime is dominated by those who feel no guilt or remorse; the very fact that someone is tormented by<unk> s and has never acted on them before is an excellent predictor that they will not act upon the<unk> s. Patients who are not troubled or shamed by their<unk> s, do not find them distasteful, or who have actually taken action, might need to have more serious conditions such as psychosis or potentially criminal behaviors ruled out. According to Lee Baer, a patient should be concerned that<unk> s are dangerous if the person does not feel upset by the<unk> s, or rather finds them pleasurable; has ever acted on violent or sexual<unk> s or urges; hears voices or sees things that others do not see; or feels uncontrollable irresistible anger. Aggressive<unk> s<unk> s may involve violent obsessions about hurting others or themselves. They can be related to primarily obsessional obsessive compulsive disorder. These<unk> s can include harming a child; jumping from a bridge, mountain, or the top of a tall building; urges to jump in front of a train or automobile; and urges to push another in front of a train or automobile. Rachman's survey of healthy college students found that virtually all of them had<unk> s from time to time, including: * causing harm to elderly people * imagining or wishing harm upon someone close to oneself * impulses to violently attack, hit, harm or kill a person, small child, or animal * impulses to shout at or abuse someone, or attack and violently punish someone, or say something rude, inappropriate, nasty, or violent to someone. These<unk> s are part of being human, and need not ruin the quality of life. Treatment is available when the<unk> s are associated with OCD and become persistent, severe, or distressing. A variant of aggressive<unk> s is L'appel du vide, or the call of the void. Sufferers of L'appel du vide generally describe the condition as manifesting in certain situations, normally as a wish or brief desire to jump from a high location. Sexual<unk> s Sexual obsession involves<unk> s or images of "kissing, touching, fondling, oral sex, anal sex, intercourse, and rape" with "strangers, acquaintances, parents, children, family members, friends, coworkers, animals and religious figures", involving "heterosexual or homosexual content" with persons of any age. Common sexual themes for<unk> s for men involve “(a) having sex in a public place, (b) people I come in contact with being naked, and (c) engaging in a sexual act with someone who is unacceptable to me because they have authority over me.” While common sexual<unk> s for women are (a) having sex in a public place, (b) engaging in a sexual act with someone who is unacceptable to me because they have authority over me, and (c) being sexually victimized. Like other unwanted<unk> s or images, most people have some inappropriate sexual<unk> s at times, but people with OCD may attach significance to the unwanted sexual<unk> s, generating anxiety and distress. The doubt that accompanies OCD leads to uncertainty regarding whether one might act on the<unk> s, resulting in self-criticism or loathing. One of the more common sexual<unk> s occurs when an obsessive person doubts their sexual identity. As in the case of most sexual obsessions, sufferers may feel shame and live in isolation, finding it hard to discuss their fears, doubts, and concerns about their sexual identity. A person experiencing sexual<unk> s may feel shame, "embarrassment, guilt, distress, torment, fear of acting on the<unk>  or perceived impulse, and doubt about whether they have already acted in such a way." Depression may be a result of the self-loathing that can occur, depending on how much the OCD interferes with daily functioning or causes distress. Their concern over these<unk> s may cause them to scrutinize their bodies to determine if the<unk> s result in feelings of arousal. However, focusing their attention on any part of the body can result in feelings in that body part, hence doing so may decrease confidence and increase fear about acting on the urges. Part of the treatment of sexual<unk> s involves therapy to help sufferers accept<unk> s and stop trying to reassure themselves by checking their bodies. This arousal within the body parts is due to conditioned physiological responses in the brain, which do not respond to the subject of the sexual<unk>  but rather to the fact that a sexual<unk>  is occurring at all and thus engage an automatic response (research indicates that the correlation between what the genitalia regard as "sexually relevant" and what the brain regards as "sexually appealing" only correlates 50% of the time in men and 10% of the time in women). This means that an arousal response does not necessarily indicate that the person desires what they are thinking about. However, rational thinking processes attempt to explain this reaction and OCD causes people to attribute false meaning and importance to these physiological reactions in an attempt to make sense of them. Sufferers can also experience heightened anxiety caused by "forbidden" images or simply by discussing the matter which can then also cause physiological arousal, such as sweating, increased heart rate and some degree of tumescence or lubrication. This is often misinterpreted by the sufferer as an indication of desire or intent, when it is in fact not. Religious<unk> s Blasphemous<unk> s are a common component of OCD, documented throughout history; notable religious figures such as Martin Luther and Ignatius of Loyola were known to be tormented by<unk> , blasphemous or religious<unk> s and urges. Martin Luther had urges to curse God and Jesus, and was obsessed with images of "the Devil's behind." St. Ignatius had numerous obsessions, including the fear of stepping on pieces of straw forming a cross, fearing that it showed disrespect to Christ. A study of 50 patients with a primary diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder found that 40% had religious and blasphemous<unk> s and doubts—a higher, but not statistically significantly different number than the 38% who had the obsessional<unk> s related to dirt and contamination more commonly associated with OCD. One study suggests that the content of<unk> s may vary depending on culture, and that blasphemous<unk> s may be more common in men than in women. According to Fred Penzel, a New York psychologist, some common religious obsessions and<unk> s are: * sexual<unk> s about God, saints, and religious figures * bad<unk> s or images during prayer or meditation *<unk> s of being possessed *
Intrusive thought
Mindfulness
Homicidal ideation
Morbid love
Emotional detachment
Obsessive love
Distrust
Mirrored-self misidentification