Dear Oceandrive24:

You are welcome. “Is there a particular way in which I can approach my son with his OCD?… Are there perhaps some of my own behaviours in the way I interact with him that I may need to consider?”-

1. You can stop asking him questions that he already answered best he could/ best anyone suffering from OCD is able to answer. This way, over time, he is not likely to get angry and frustrated with questions that are evidence that you didn’t listen to what he told you before, and that you don’t understand him.

2. Understand that the problem for him is not an intellectual inability to think rationally/ to intellectually identify problems and solutions. The problem for him is the fear that overwhelms him. You can’t rationalize fear.

So, don’t have conversations with him aimed at rationally understanding his OCD. Instead, work on ways to help him lessen his fear. There is a concept in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) called emotional regulation skills. It  is a set of skills that your son can learn and practice so that over time, his fear will lessen and lessen, and at one point on, his fear will not be so great that it will overwhelm him.

Research the topic and get back to me, if you will, and I will reply to you further.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by .