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Tag: ICBT

223. How Mindfulness is Helpful for ICBT

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie shares how mindfulness and Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) can come together in a powerful way to support your OCD recovery journey. 

Episode Highlights:

The difference between mindfulness and meditation, and why it matters

How mindfulness helps you create space from intrusive thoughts

Why building distress tolerance is key for OCD recovery

What ICBT is and how it reveals what’s really happening behind OCD

How faith, Scripture, and staying present support your healing journey

Episode Summary: 

How Can Mindfulness Actually Help Me Break Free from OCD Thought Loops?

I used to think mindfulness was just about calming down, but I’ve seen it become something much deeper. It creates space between you and the intrusive thoughts that feel so real. And in that space, something begins to shift. Instead of reacting, you start noticing. That small change can open the door to a different kind of peace, especially in the middle of OCD struggles.

Why Do I Keep Getting Stuck in Worst-Case Scenarios Even When I Know They Aren’t True?

Your mind can take one moment and turn it into a future disaster that feels completely real. But what if the issue isn’t the thought itself, but how we respond to it? I’ve seen how OCD pulls us out of the present and into imagined fear. When we gently return to what’s actually happening right now, things begin to loosen, even if just a little.

What Happens When I Stop Fighting My Thoughts and Just Sit with Them?

This is where it gets uncomfortable, but also where growth begins. Instead of pushing thoughts away, mindfulness invites you to stay present with them. To notice without judgment. And over time, you may begin to see that thoughts don’t hold as much power as they once did. That shift can feel quiet, but it’s meaningful.

How Do Mindfulness and ICBT Work Together to Rewire My Thinking?

When mindfulness and ICBT come together, something powerful happens. ICBT helps you understand the story your mind is telling, while mindfulness helps you slow down enough to see it. Without awareness, it’s easy to stay stuck. But once you begin to notice the patterns, you’re no longer completely led by them.

Why Does OCD Feel So Real in My Body Even When I Know It Doesn’t Make Sense?

OCD doesn’t just live in your thoughts. It shows up in your body, your emotions, and that sense of urgency. It feels real because your body believes it is. Mindfulness helps you stay present with those sensations without reacting right away. And over time, that builds trust that you can handle what you feel.

How Can My Faith Support My Healing Instead of Adding Pressure?

Faith was never meant to increase fear. When we come back to stillness, daily dependence, and God’s presence, it aligns beautifully with mindfulness. God meets us in the present moment, not in imagined fears. And learning to sit with Him there can bring a deeper, steadier kind of peace.

If this stirred something in you, there’s more waiting for you in the full episode. Listen now. 

209. Three Common Objections to ICBT 

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

Carrie explores three common objections to Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) and explains why OCD treatment is not one-size-fits-all. 

Episode Highlights:

  • Why OCD treatment is not one-size-fits-all and must be tailored to the whole person
  • How ICBT addresses the unique reasoning process behind OCD obsessions
  • Why struggling with OCD does not mean you’ve lost the ability to think or reason well
  • The difference between obsessional reasoning and everyday, present-moment reasoning
  • How trusting sensory data can help break free from “what if” thinking
  • Why ICBT is not about arguing with OCD, but expanding beyond its narrow story
  • How faith, identity in Christ, and ICBT work together to bring hope—especially for scrupulosity

Episode Summary:

Today’s episode came straight out of real conversations I have with clients and listeners—especially those of you who have been told, “ERP is the gold standard for OCD treatment,” and now you’re wondering what it means if ERP didn’t work for you… or didn’t feel like a good fit.

Maybe you’ve tried Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and felt overwhelmed, discouraged, or even ashamed when it didn’t bring the relief you hoped for.

Maybe you’ve been curious about ICBT, but you’re thinking, “Is this really legitimate?” or “Am I just avoiding the hard work?”

We talk about all of that in this episode.

I share why OCD treatment is not one-size-fits-all, why ERP can be helpful for many people and still not be the right approach for everyone, and how labeling one method as the only “right” option can quietly leave people feeling broken when they’re not getting better.

We also unpack a big misconception—that ICBT is just “arguing with OCD” or trying to think your way out of a disorder. Instead, we talk about how OCD uses a very specific reasoning process, and how ICBT helps you recognize when you’ve slipped into OCD’s imagined future instead of living from the present moment—where God’s grace actually meets you.

This episode is especially for you if:

  • You’ve done ERP and are wondering what other options exist
  • You struggle with scrupulosity or faith-based OCD
  • You’re asking, “Will anything ever work for me?”

I want you to hear this clearly: ERP not working for you does not mean you’re hopeless. There is still a path forward.

🎧 Tune in to the full episode and let’s walk through these objections together.

Transcript

 Welcome back OCD Warriors. Today we’re talking about three common objections to ICBT, so let’s get into it. Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing.

When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace. We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith.

I’m here to help you. Let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode. Number one that I often hear is, well, I’ve been told that ERP or Exposure and response prevention is the gold standard of treatment for OCD. Can I just tell you that I’m so tired of hearing that.

I’m so tired. I’m so done. I’m so over it. We’ve gotta stop saying that there is no one size fits all for OCD treatment. I have met many, many people struggling with OCD. Some of them need a little bit of DBT skills woven in because they just have no tolerance for any kind of emotional distress. I’ve met people who have had just very poor relationship skills.

They struggle in their family relationships. They struggle with boundaries, communication, assertiveness. I’ve met with people with trauma. His trauma is feeding into their OCD. We’ve got to stop acting like if OCD is the nail, then ERP is the hammer. I’m done. Now, this has been said many times over and over, and quite frankly, to throw them out on Front Street io.

CDF is responsible for a lot of this language. Now we know that there have been many, many studies done that have shown exposure and response prevention to be effective. We also know on the flip side. That ERP has a high dropout rate. It’s very difficult. I’ve talked with many of you who are looking for alternatives and who have done some ERP and really didn’t feel either that it was effective for you or didn’t feel like that was a road that you wanted to go down because of your spiritual beliefs and how exposing yourself to certain things did not align.

I do think there is a way to do ERP that’s spiritually and religiously sensitive and sound hats off to the many, many clinicians out there who are doing that. What happens when you tell someone that something is the gold standard of treatment? And then it doesn’t work for them or they don’t find it effective.

Creates a lot of hopelessness. It creates a lot of shame. It creates a lot of, what in the world is wrong with me? Because if this is the gold standard and I did the gold standard, then shouldn’t I be better? And so I really wish that they would adjust that language to say that people with OCD. Have complex things going on and they need to find possibly a blend of treatments that will work the best for their unique situation.

They’re coming from a good place because they want people to get evidence-based care, and I understand that and I do appreciate the promotion of evidence-based care, but I also know that people are people, they’re not study participants. Many, many of them are not study participants and many, many of them would not qualify for an OCD study due to the massive other things that they have going on in their life or in their clinical presentation.

I’ve talked about that on the podcast before, so I won’t be labor that point either. ICBT has also been researched. ICBT is being used by many clinicians. Are having great success, and I see this all the time, not only with my own clients and my own students, but from talking with other ICBT clinicians who have been able to help many, many individuals.

There is no one size fits all for OCD treatment, whoever you decide to seek help from, please make sure that they have the training and experience needed in OCD to be able to treat you. If you are going to seek, whether it’s E-R-P-I-C-B-T, or some other form of therapy, ask the questions, ask the hard questions.

Ask your therapist, what percentage of their caseload do they see? Who has OCD? Ask them what kinds of themes they’ve worked with, if that’s something that’s a concern for you, or how they might treat your particular theme. The second objection that I hear pretty frequently is people say, well, wait a minute.

I have a mental health condition and you’re telling me that I need to use my brain. To reason my way out of OCD, well, you have the ability in your everyday reasoning process to reason many different types of things. I have seen people who are struggling with OCD, who are incredibly successful. They’re problem solvers, they’re engineers, they’re in tech.

They’re doing just amazing things, super smart, and they have the ability to reason a variety of different ways. Yes, of course. Your brain has that ability to be able to change and shift the way that you’re thinking about things. That’s the beauty of neuroplasticity. Also, we know that there is a OCD way of thinking.

And an everyday reasoning process way of thinking that we talk about in Icbt. So people will say things to me like, yeah, and I do this and I have to do this compulsion because of this. And I’ll say like, I mean, I know it doesn’t make sense. I’m like, well, it does like in OCD world, it makes complete sense to me what you’re saying because I understand that obsessional reasoning process.

But we also know that we’re in everyday reasoning processes. All day long day where we are determining if situations are safe or not, and we’re not using those same rules that OCD uses. So the key thing is if you can start to recognize when you’re in a non obsessional reasoning process, like what’s the difference?

ICBT says you’re able to really trust your sense data of what’s happening. In the present, in the here and now without going into this land of imagination of all kinds of what if hypotheticals, and you do that on a day-to-day basis. When you get in your car, when you look both ways across the street when you go into a store or you’re kind of like scanning the environment, okay, there’s somebody over there that’s loitering or I’m not really sure what they’re doing, they’re kind of out of place.

Maybe I’ll just kind of walk the other direction. You might have had situations like that, I know I have, where you have to be on a little bit more high alert for your safety based on the location that you’re in or what you’re doing, and you’re able to use your sense data to determine that. There may be times where you’ve looked at packages of food and it was just very clear that for whatever reason it was spoiled.

You didn’t get to it fast enough in the refrigerator. Senses of sight and smell are able to tell you like, Hey, that food is not any good. What OCD does is it’ll read the tag on the package of chicken that says it expires tomorrow. And OCD will say something like, what if it actually expires today? And what if that means that there might be some harmful bacteria in this chicken and we could cook it all the way?

How do I know if it’s really done? It’s still may. Maybe it’s a little pink in the center. I might really need to look at like that’s the obsessional reasoning process versus just really trusting in your senses and not going into the land of futuristic thinking, I’m gonna be sick all of a sudden from this chicken, which is perfectly fine for me to cook in a normal, healthy way.

So yes, you do have the ability, even though this is a disorder that affects your thought process, you have the ability to think differently about it, to look at alternative narratives. The third objection that I hear about I ccbt is that it’s really just arguing with your ocd. That’s all you’re doing.

You’re saying, well. You’re writing some type of alternative narrative, and that’s just engaging with the Ooc D in a way that you shouldn’t, and you should just be disconnecting from that and being able to move towards your values or expose yourself to things that are scary. And we’re not arguing with OCD, we’re not saying that some of these things are not possible.

We are saying that not everything that’s possible is probable. OCD doesn’t really care if it’s a 0.0001% chance it will still convince you that this is going to happen. So we don’t worry as much about probability because many, many different things are probable. What we’re saying is what data do we have to show that is going to happen?

If we don’t have any data to show us that that’s going to happen, our real sensory information, then that’s not something that we need to be concerned about. It’ll almost be like saying that you’re preparing for a rainy day when it’s completely sunny outside and you look at the weather report, it looks like it’s gonna be sunny or maybe partially cloudy, and you say, well, I really need to put on my boots and my raincoat because theoretically it could potentially rain today.

What we’re doing with alternative narratives in I CCB t is we’re not trying to argue with the obsessional story. We’re not trying to say, oh, this alternative narrative, it’s right and the obsessional story, it’s wrong because that is too black and white in itself. There may be some genuine uncertainties that OCD latches onto and that makes things really confusing.

There are some things that you might not be able to know right now. Like for example, should I marry this person? Maybe you haven’t been dating them or knowing them long enough really to make some type of determination about that, but you could make some determinations about what you’ve seen in terms of how they act or their character.

If nothing else, you can make a determination about, yes, I wanna continue getting to know this person, or no, I don’t. But the general, like, where is this gonna go in the future? Might be a true uncertainty that you have to live with. And when we look at that alternative narrative, we’re just trying to like debunk the obsessional story as like the only story in your brain.

Like this is the only possibility of something that could happen. It’s almost a way of just being creative and expanding your mind to say, yeah, that could happen. Things could go terribly horrible, awful, and all of my deepest fears come true, or things actually could be okay. Maybe, I don’t know in this situation, but as Christians, we can rest and we can trust God.

That comes from knowing that God loves us, that God cares about us, that God has our best interests at heart. If you’re struggling with scrupulosity, those things may be really hard to grasp ahold of right now. That’s one of the reasons that I’m really trying to incorporate more and more tools for Christians in my online course Empowered Mind.

We are getting ready to start up on Monday, this kind of last call, if you wanna get in there and be involved, but I would love to have you. So you are all invited. If you’re just done kind of fighting with OCD and you’re unsure of what to do next, but maybe you’ve tried some different things and, and what you’ve tried hasn’t worked, I just encourage you to try ICBT to just go in.

I’ve yet to have a person who dropped out because they were absolutely terrified or just felt like they needed to avoid all the content. There’s a way to practicing with your particular theme, feels too scary or too daunting. You can certainly look at some other examples and practicing with maybe a past theme that you’ve been able to work through that doesn’t bother you anymore.

Or just a complete different story, something maybe that isn’t emotionally charged for you. So that’s one thing that I really love about it. You don’t have to necessarily use your own stuff in the beginning until you feel more comfortable and more confident in being able to apply the skills. One of the things that I really want to shake up, as I talked about in the beginning, is this idea that there is a one size fits all.

Really have to look at people as unique individuals, what their needs are, what they’re most struggling with, how things have worked or haven’t worked over time, and develop a solid plan for that. So I really encourage all of you to look at what your options are, but hopefully this episode helped you. I recognize or work through some objections that maybe you’ve had to engaging with Icbt, whether you are a clinician or a therapist listening.

Ultimately, your big question may be, will this work for me? Will this work for my particular theme? Will this work if other things haven’t worked for me in the past? In other words, is there any hope of me being able to develop some skills to deal with this ocd? As I always say, I believe that there is hope for you regardless of what you have been through or how severe things are looking right now.

This treatment has been shown to work across a variety of different themes. I feel like ICBT is great for scrupulosity because of the emphasis on identity and focusing on your true self versus this feared false self that OCD has convinced you that you are or you’re going to become if you don’t engage in compulsions.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Christian faith in OCD is a production of by the Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

207. Increased Confidence in Who God Created Her to be: A Personal story with Ashley Lawrence

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie sits down with Ashley Lawrence, a wife, mom, homeschooler, and artist who shares her journey with OCD, and how God met her in the middle of years of fear, doubt, and unanswered questions.

Episode Highlights:

  • How scrupulosity can mimic a “faith problem” when it is actually OCD
  • What mental compulsions can look like, including rumination, internal checking, and reassurance seeking
  • How warning passages in Scripture can become triggers for obsessive doubt and fear
  • How ICBT helps “disarm” OCD’s reasoning and make intrusive thoughts feel less convincing
  • How identifying the feared self versus your real identity in Christ can support recovery and peace

Episode Summary:

Have you ever opened your Bible hoping for peace, only to walk away feeling more anxious than comforted, then quietly wondered what that means about your faith?

I sit down with Ashley Lawrence, who shares her personal journey with scrupulosity and OCD and how she spent years believing she had a spiritual problem rather than a mental health one. Like so many Christians, Ashley loved the Lord deeply, yet felt trapped in cycles of doubt, fear, and constant mental checking that never seemed to bring relief.

In this conversation, we talk about how OCD can latch onto Scripture and deeply held beliefs, turning faith into a source of fear instead of rest. Ashley shares how learning about Inference Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) from a Christian perspective helped her begin to understand the OCD reasoning process, separate fear from truth, and loosen the grip of obsessive doubt. We explore how ICBT does not ask you to abandon your faith, but instead helps you live more fully from the truth of who God says you are.

My prayer is that this episode reminds you that struggling with scrupulosity does not mean you are failing God. It means you are human, and God is patient, compassionate, and present with you in the middle of the struggle.

Share this episode with someone who may be silently wrestling with spiritual anxiety or intrusive thoughts.

If you are prayerfully considering next steps, I invite you to learn more about Empowered Mind and see if it may be the support you have been asking God for.

You do not have to walk this journey alone. Healing takes time, grace, and support, and God is with you every step of the way.

205. You’re Not Alone in Your OCD: Survey Results and Upcoming Episode Plans! 

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 205. You’re Not Alone in Your OCD: Survey Results and Upcoming Episode Plans! 

In this episode, Carrie reflects on insights from the listener survey and shares how that feedback is shaping the direction of the show in 2026. She also explores what healing can look like for Christians with OCD and how to take meaningful steps forward.

Episode Highlights:

  • What the listener survey revealed about where listeners are in their OCD journey
  • How listener feedback is guiding the podcast’s direction in 2026
  • A preview of upcoming topics
  • How the podcast is intentionally designed to support your specific questions and struggles
  • Why evidence-based treatment matters for OCD and what to look for in a therapist

Episode Summary:

What if your voice and your story mattered more to this podcast than you ever realized?

One of the greatest gifts of hosting Christian Faith and OCD has been the opportunity to hear directly from you. 

In this episode, I share insights from the listener survey we conducted around the podcast’s 200th episode and explain why your responses meant so much to me. Hearing your stories offered a clearer picture of the real questions, struggles, and experiences so many of you are carrying, often quietly and for a long time.

I also walk through what many of you have tried in the past, what has and hasn’t helped, and why evidence-based treatment for OCD matters. 

As we look ahead, I share what’s coming in 2026, including a deeper focus on scrupulosity and other listener-requested topics. I also provide updates on my course, Empowered Mind: Christian ICBT for OCD, created to help you build a healthier relationship with intrusive thoughts and grow in confidence, clarity, and peace.

This episode is also an invitation to pause and consider your own journey. What might your next step be? Whether that step feels big or small, my hope is that you’ll feel encouraged to move forward with intention, prayer, and grace. You don’t have to have everything figured out, and you don’t have to take that step alone.

181. My Response to the Updated IOCF’s Treatment Recommendations

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie responds to the International OCD Foundation’s newly released 2024 treatment guidelines. She offers a therapist’s take on the updates, and what they mean for Christians navigating OCD. 

Episode Highlights:

  • What the IOCDF’s updated 2024 treatment guidelines mean for OCD care, and why this shift matters.
  • How Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) compares to newer approaches like Inference-Based CBT (ICBT) and metacognitive therapy.
  • Why faith-based concerns and nervous system sensitivity can make ERP difficult for some Christians with OCD.
  • Which therapies the IOCDF considers “adjunct,” “second-line,” or “potentially harmful”—and Carrie’s take on that, especially when it comes to EMDR.
  • How to navigate your treatment choices with discernment, hope, and a plan that fits both your story and your values.

Episode Summary:

What if the treatment everyone says is “best” doesn’t work for you—or feels off with your faith? What if there are other options that deserve more attention? 

In this episode of Christian Faith and OCD, I’m offering my personal and clinical take on the IOCDF’s new 2024 treatment guidelines, and unpacking what they actually mean for Christians navigating OCD and seeking faith-aligned therapy.

These updates are getting a lot of attention—and for good reason. As a licensed professional counselor who supports Christians struggling with OCD, I wanted to offer my perspective on what these changes actually mean for those of us trying to find treatment that honors both our clinical needs and our faith.

We explore the IOCDF’s continued promotion of ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) as the gold standard, while also recognizing that for many—especially Christians—ERP can feel like too much, too soon, or just not a fit. 

I highlight the growing visibility of ICBT (Inference-Based CBT) and metacognitive therapy, both of which are starting to gain traction as valid alternatives. I also share my thoughts on why labeling EMDR as “ineffective or harmful” can be misleading and hurtful to people who’ve found deep healing through trauma-informed approaches.

Whether you’re brand new to OCD treatment or have tried ERP and are still searching, this episode is meant to encourage, inform, and remind you that healing is possible—and there is more than one path forward.

👉 Listen to the full episode to get a clearer picture of what’s really changing in the OCD world, how to navigate these treatment options with wisdom and faith, and why you don’t have to settle for a one-size-fits-all approach.

Related Link:

OCD Treatment Guide: Best Evidence-Based Therapies, Medications, and New Advances

177. Being Diagnosed with OCD Later in Life: A Personal Story with Heather Vignali 

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie welcomes fellow therapist Heather Vignali to share her personal journey with OCD, including how symptoms emerged during a major life transition—and how ICBT, EMDR, and her Christian faith played a role in her healing.

Episode Highlights:

  • The ways OCD impacted Heather’s life, including obsessive safety concerns and compulsive monitoring of her daughter.
  • What “anxiety tongue” is and how somatic symptoms can signal deeper mental health struggles.
  • How Inference-Based CBT (I-CBT) helped Heather understand the root of her intrusive thoughts through concepts like the Feared Possible Self.
  • Ways EMDR and other integrative therapies can support healing when trauma and OCD intersect.
  • How OCD can impact faith, and how to navigate scrupulosity while reconnecting with spiritual truth.

Episode Summary:

Today’s episode is part of our series sharing real and personal experiences with OCD, and I’m so excited to introduce you to Heather Vignali—a licensed professional counselor serving New Jersey and New York. Heather works primarily with adult women navigating anxiety, OCD, self-esteem challenges, and relationship stress. And for clients who want to bring their Christian faith into the counseling process, she offers that too.

Heather shares her own journey of recognizing and getting diagnosed with OCD—something that didn’t fully surface until a major life transition: her daughter’s senior year of high school. As she prepared to launch her daughter into the world, Heather started noticing signs that went beyond everyday anxiety. Physical symptoms, compulsive checking behaviors, and relentless fears about her daughter’s safety became daily struggles. Like many, she initially didn’t realize these were signs of OCD.

Through this conversation, we talk about what it looked like for her to begin questioning her own thoughts, how she discovered Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT), and what it’s been like to walk through the ups and downs of treatment. She gets real about what it felt like to live in the “OCD bubble,” and the shift that happened when she understood her feared possible self—this internal fear of being negligent or careless—and how it was driving so many of her compulsions.

We also dive into how OCD started to impact her faith, bringing in scrupulosity and intrusive doubts about salvation. If you’ve ever wrestled with thoughts that feel out of alignment with what you know to be true about God, this part of her story will really resonate. Heather shares how she found grounding again, how remembering God’s faithfulness helped her re-anchor her faith, and how both therapy and truth-telling community played a key role in her healing.

Tune into the full episode to hear more of Heather’s story, how ICBT helped her reframe the way she relates to her thoughts, and how she’s now using her experience to support others.

Related Links and Resources:

www.facebook.com/HeatherVignaliLPC

IG: @heathervignalilpc

174. Is ICBT Right for Me? How Do I Know?

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

 In this episode, Carrie explores whether inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy (ICBT) is a good fit for individuals struggling with OCD—especially those who haven’t found success with exposure and response prevention (ERP). 

Episode Highlights:

  • The key differences between ERP and ICBT, and why ICBT may be a better fit for certain individuals with OCD.
  • How ICBT helps unpack the reasoning behind obsessions rather than just managing behaviors.
  • Why ICBT can be especially valuable for Christians seeking faith-sensitive OCD treatment.
  • The limitations and challenges of ERP, including dropout rates and religious exposure concerns.
  • What it takes to succeed with ICBT, including a willingness to deeply engage with the learning and healing process.

Episode Summary:

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a bit, you’ve probably heard me bring up ICBT—Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. And maybe at some point you’ve thought, “Hmm… should I be looking into that?” Or maybe you’ve heard over and over that ERP is the gold standard for OCD treatment and thought, “Okay, but what if it’s not working for me? Then what?”

You’re not the only one asking that. I’ve sat with so many clients—strong believers, committed to healing—who’ve tried ERP and walked away feeling like something was missing. Maybe it helped for a bit, or in session it seemed manageable, but day-to-day it just didn’t stick. Sometimes the approach just didn’t fit with their personality, or even worse—it didn’t feel in line with their faith. And let me be clear: ERP has helped a lot of people, and I absolutely respect that. But it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. If you’ve felt discouraged or even a little defeated by it, I want you to know: you are not broken. You’re not a failure. You just might need a different path.

In this episode, I start breaking down some of the key ways ICBT differs from ERP—not just in method, but in mindset. We look at the reasoning behind obsessions instead of just sitting with them. We explore how OCD uses facts out of context and hijacks your thought process, and how, through ICBT, you can begin to untangle that web with clarity and confidence. We also talk about why certain types of exposures may actually feel wrong to you—not because you’re avoiding healing, but because they don’t align with your core values and beliefs.

If you’re someone who wants more than just “sit with the anxiety,” if you’re a thinker, a feeler, a person of faith—then ICBT might be the thing you’ve been hoping for but didn’t know existed.

Now, I’m just scratching the surface here.

To really understand if ICBT is the right fit for you, go listen to the full episode. I’ll walk you through four key signs this approach might be what you need—especially if you’ve tried ERP and still feel stuck, overwhelmed, or conflicted about the process.

You don’t have to stay in that place. You don’t have to choose between healing and your faith. There is a path forward—and I’d be honored to walk it with you.

173. Who Are You Really? Discovering Your Real Self with Angela Henry, LCSW

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie sits down with Angela Henry, LCSW, a therapist in private practice based in Northern Indiana, to discuss her journey into OCD treatment, the integration of faith in therapy, and how Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) is transforming lives—especially for Christians struggling with OCD and scrupulosity.

Episode Highlights:

  • What the “feared possible self” is and how it’s quietly shaping your compulsions
  • Why OCD recovery isn’t just about symptom relief—it’s about reclaiming your identity
  • How ICBT helps Christians reconnect with the truth of who God says they are
  • What makes ICBT a powerful, research-based alternative to ERP—especially for Christians with scrupulosity
  • Why it’s okay to keep your values—and drop the fear that’s twisting them
  • Practical ways to integrate faith into the recovery process, even when religious practices have become tangled with fear

Episode Summary:

Have you ever felt like you’re living under a weight that isn’t really you? 

In this episode, I sit down with Angela Henry, an OCD specialist and Christian therapist, to explore the powerful concepts behind Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT)—and how it helps uncover the real self God created you to be.

Angela shares her faith-led journey into OCD treatment and how the concept of the feared possible self resonates deeply with those battling OCD, anxiety, trauma, and scrupulosity. 

We also dive into how OCD often hijacks Christian values like excellence or devotion and twists them into compulsions driven by fear.

We talk about what it looks like to drop OCD while keeping your God-given values, how to trust your internal sense data as one way God communicates with us, and why identity work is central to healing—not just symptom relief.

You’ll hear stories from Angela’s clinical experience, a moving mirror-based real-self exercise, and how discovering your real self can be a spiritual breakthrough as much as a therapeutic one.

If OCD has convinced you that you’re a danger, a disappointment, or spiritually defective… if you’re exhausted from trying to earn God’s approval through compulsive prayers or mental checking… this episode is for you.

Related Links and Resources:

angelahenrylcsw.com

162. Hope for Scrupulosity with Dr. Constance Salhany

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

Welcome back to Christian Faith and OCD! 

This week, Carrie continues the Themes and Treatment series with a deep dive into scrupulosity. Joining her for this powerful conversation is Dr. Constance Salhany, clinical psychologist and founder of Cognitive Therapy of Staten Island, They explore how ICBT offers a powerful, self-theme-based approach to treating scrupulosity, helping individuals break free from cycles of fear and guilt.

Episode Highlights:

  • What scrupulosity is and how it manifests in religious and moral concerns.
  • The difference between scrupulosity, religious OCD, and spiritual OCD.
  • How ICBT (Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) approaches scrupulosity.
  • The role of self-themes in OCD and how they shape obsessional doubts.
  • How understanding one’s identity as a child of God helps in overcoming scrupulosity.
  • Why trusting in a personal relationship with God is key to healing from scrupulosity.

Episode Summary:

Have you ever found yourself constantly worrying about whether you’ve sinned, confessed properly, or followed every religious practice to the letter? If so, you may be struggling with scrupulosity.

In Episode 162 of Christian Faith and OCD, I had a conversation with Dr. Connie Salhany, about what scrupulosity is, how it develops, and most importantly, how to find freedom from it.

One of the most challenging aspects of scrupulosity is how it extends beyond just religious concerns. I’ve seen this quite a bit with my clients—what starts as one type of OCD can quickly spill over into the moral/religious realm. Someone might initially struggle with obsessing over everyday decisions, wondering if they’re offending God without realizing it and then wonder if their salvation is in jeopardy. 

Scrupulosity isn’t just about religious concerns—it’s deeply tied to OCD. 

As Dr. Connie shared, many people with OCD experience obsessional doubts that spiral into scrupulosity. It can even overlap with other OCD subtypes.

For years, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) has been the gold standard for OCD treatment. But, Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) has been gaining attention, especially for scrupulosity.

ICBT focuses on identifying the “self-theme” behind a person’s obsessional doubts. It helps reframe these fears by distinguishing between obsessional doubts and reality.

Dr. Connie shared how true healing comes from trusting not in a set of rules, but in someone—in a loving God who knows our hearts.

“The most important thing in treating scrupulosity is helping people know, that they know, that they know—trusting not in a something, but in a Someone.” – Dr. Connie 

If you struggle with scrupulosity, remember: You are not alone. God’s grace is greater than your doubts. There is hope and help available.

For a deeper dive into this conversation, listen to the full episode. 

Have you experienced scrupulosity in your faith journey? Send me a message—I’d love to hear your story and encourage you along the way!

Related Links and Resources:

cognitivetherapysi.com

Explore Related Episode:

133. Looking for an Alternative to ERP? Find out if ICBT is Right for You

Transcript

Carrie: Welcome back to our themes and treatment series on the podcast, where today we’re talking about all things scrupulosity. I feel very honored and privileged to have Dr. Connie Salhaini on the show, joining me to talk about this important topic. Dr. Salhaini is the founder and clinical director of Cognitive Therapy of Staten Island and the founder of Catholic Mental Health Professionals.

As someone who originally trained in CBT and exposure and response prevention, I think she provides some really unique insight ICBT. Inference based cognitive behavioral therapy has shifted and changed her practice over time, specifically in working with clients who are dealing with scrupulosity.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Kiri Bach. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD. God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding, struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

Tell us a little bit about

Dr. Connie: yourself. Sure. I’m a clinical psychologist from New York, and I have a husband and children and grandchildren and a dog. And I’ve been doing this work since the stone ages. I’ll say it’s since the mid 1980s when I was a student. So it’s a long, long time. Has this been your only career that you’ve had?

Well, when I was a college student, I worked in Burger King and lots of other places, but this has been my one and only profession.

Carrie: I just know a lot of people in the counseling field have had other careers or things and shifted gears, but I’m similar. I have not been in the field as long as you have, but this has been my only career.

That’s awesome. Your kids are grown now and you have some grandkids.

Dr. Connie: Yep. Great life, yeah. So many blessings.

Carrie: How did you get involved in the process of becoming a clinical psychologist? Did you start out working with OCD, or was that something that you just started seeing a lot more of? How did you get into the OCD work?

I knew

Dr. Connie: that I wanted to treat anxiety disorders. I knew that I wanted to do the best I could, so I researched. And at that time, CBT for anxiety disorders. I just got my hands on everything that I could. I landed an internship at a non profit patient advocacy organization called Freedom From Fear. At that time, they still do a clinic.

And so I worked in the clinic and it was A super exciting time back in the mid 1980s. Now I’m talking before Prozac, folks were using exposure, but not like with ERP that we know today. So we were using it and they had a satellite at the place that I was working, which was a research through Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Psychiatric Institute.

It was just such a blessing to be there at the time when they’re doing all of this groundbreaking research because the people who were coming in with OCD weren’t getting better with the tricyclic antidepressants and with some of the treatments that were done at the time. And there was like a buzz of excitement.

I had this great mentor and she was wonderful. And she was, oh my goodness, head over heels in terms of all of the research and everything, and it was really contagious. And then from there, I mean, I just kept learning. I always wanted to try to learn as much as I could for my patients. And so I learned Becky and CBT and I learned some ERP and I took classes with whoever I could take classes with, follow up with whoever I could to learn anything that I could to help people.

It was really a passion.

Carrie: You were starting to see like, Oh, what we use for anxiety. We can’t necessarily use the same strategies or the same approaches for OCD. Exactly.

Dr. Connie: Yeah, it was really, really exciting time to be there.

Carrie: And then you got trained in exposure and response prevention that was considered.

the treatment for OCD as far as the psychotherapy standpoint.

Dr. Connie: And as well as a variety of other treatments that I learned for other anxiety. Well, at that time, they were anxiety disorders, now OCDs by itself. So I learned everything that I could. And now, what’s really interesting is that two and a half years ago, I became aware of ICBT, inference based CBT.

And that spark that I was telling you about, Yeah. And it was like this contagion, this fever, it took over and I wanted to, again, to learn everything I could about ERP. And then ICBT became my thing. It threw myself in and I started to see amazing things happening.

Carrie: You’re one of the people in the ICBT community that is really kind of known for treating scrupulosity.

Certainly, there’s a lot of clinicians who treat it, but that’s one of your specialty areas within ICBT. That’s what we’re really trying to explore today is what is scrupulosity? Like, how would you define that just for the lay person?

Dr. Connie: That’s really a great question. Scrupulosity, like if we look at Where it dates back to, I think it’s always been here, but we can see maybe 15th century Roman Catholic Church and this notion that folks who have worries about sin, about committing some grave sin, a need for atonement.

Yes. And it’s kind of like. We could say like seeing sin where there isn’t sin, or it actually comes from like a little pebble, a scruple. The idea is that this little sharp pebble, right, would be like sharp or hurting and think about like a sensitive conscience and the person being exposed to this pebble and the pain.

Just thinking about the term scrupulosity, you know, depends on the literature, it depends on what you’re reading. So sometimes scrupulosity looks like a subset. of OCD. Okay. We could be religious scrupulosity or moral scrupulosity for people who aren’t religious but they’re just worried about violating some kind of moral code or value that they have.

Also you’ll see religious OCD, and that’s more about Practices, it could be practices in whatever the faith tradition is, messing up those practices.

Carrie: Like I’ve got to pray a certain way, or I’ve got to pray with sincerity. I have to, like for Catholics, I have to confess constantly.

Dr. Connie: Did I do a fast correctly?

Did I observe certain feast days correctly? We can go on and on. But the idea is that this is grave. This is terrible. This is something that’s going to result in damnation and all of that. And the thing with, um, scrupulosity, we can also see spiritual scrupulosity, again, in people who don’t belong to any faith tradition, but they may have doubts about energy forces, or it almost looks existential at times.

So this overlaps. I think of scrupulosity as OCD and you can see so many ways that scrupulosity can be involved with other forms of OCD. Like for example, pedophilia OCD, someone could have that, right? Oh no, no. What if I’m attracted to children? Oh no. What if I’m going to harm children? Oh no, then God will never forgive me.

Then I’ll be damned forever. It’s interesting because you could even see it in somebody who has symmetry. OCD, just still OCD. I don’t line these things up correctly, these religious objects or whatever. And is this going to be offensive to God? Does God think I’m disrespecting? So it’s quite interesting.

Carrie: That was one of the things I wanted to ask you about. Cause I’ve seen that quite a bit in my clients where you start out with OCD and then everything, it could be even they’re feeling like they’re going to be careless and accidentally hit somebody, hit a pedestrian. What really is then they keep going with that obsessional doubt and say, Oh, well, if I hit a pedestrian, then that would be just terrible because then I would be offending God and be on my fault, all of these different things, even some things that aren’t really moral issues that are just decisions that we make in life, someone might make that a moral issue, become really, really obsessed about it and have God connections to it.

I mean, I think, do you see this a lot with like relationship OCD? Yeah. Am I marrying the person that God has for me, that type of thing.

Dr. Connie: Yes, or vocations, the same thing. No, so we could see it. It seems like there’s anything that’s important to the person. And one of the things that ICBT does so well is it identifies the self theme under it.

And that’s the person who’s afraid of becoming this person that they’re not. Like a person who could be negligent or a person who could be bad. And then we need to define what that means to that specific person. But that theme is like the big story underneath all of these different obsessional doubts.

And I’m a cognitive behavior therapist for years and years and I never saw it explained in this way. And I think that’s why I took a liking to ICBT because we can see how all of this different themes fit. Or interconnected.

Carrie: Yeah. I love that vulnerable self peace and then also looking at the real self.

Who are you really according to your beliefs and in terms of, I think that helps Christians a lot to be able to say like, okay, if I really see myself as a child of God, I mean, that makes a huge difference in how I live out my life.

Dr. Connie: Mary, you are so right about that. I think that is the most important thing about scrupulosity and the treatment of scrupulosity is when people can come to know that they know that they know, like really trust.

You know, that they’re trusting, not in a something, but in a someone, in the relationship that they have with God. And that makes all the difference. Lots of folks know it, but because of the fear, it’s intense. The suffering is awful. When they come to know that, it changes everything.

Carrie: It really does. And I find that a lot of people will seek help from a pastor or a counselor.

A mentor, someone in their church before they seek mental health help because they think this is a spiritual issue. Well, I’m somehow doubting God or what if I’ve committed this sin? What if I have not asked for forgiveness? What if this means I’m going to hell and those types of things? So it looks at mass as a spiritual issue, even though it’s not a spiritual issue.

This is a OCD affects people’s brains. And so I think it’s really important for people to understand that, that this is not a, a deficit in their spirituality. Absolutely. Yeah, the people that I meet really, they want to connect with God in a positive way. That’s really like their true desire underneath.

And all of this OCD gets in the way of them having that really Authentic, genuine connection that they want to have.

Dr. Connie: I agree completely. And I think that’s what draws me to the treatment of scrupulosity. It’s the people, they have such beautiful hearts and real great desires. Just want to please God. They just want to live a good life.

They are really beautiful and they’re so tortured by a story that has nothing at all. And in treatment, if we can restore them to that, it’s amazing. There’s nothing better. This is like a joy if we can help folks to get there. So I love this work for that reason.

Carrie: Exposure and response prevention for scrupulosity relies on a lot of imaginal scripts. Did you have some discomfort surrounding that when you would try to utilize it with clients? Can you tell us more about that?

Dr. Connie: Sure. First off, we know that ERP works great treatment. For myself, in my treatment of folks with scrupulosity, I always shied away.

From imaginal scripts with script, I would do it with other things and I would also do exposures, let’s say, a more, I guess, in depth way with other things. I have no problem sticking my hands in the garbage, touching my face, touching my hair. Modeling that no problem, no problem at all. But I remember even in training, I was like, please don’t give me a script case.

Please don’t give me a script case because I felt so uncomfortable with that. There’s a lot of reasons why I didn’t want to add to someone’s distress, but I also didn’t want to confuse the person in terms of what their faith practice was and what was an exercise in treatment. So then I relied a lot on ACT.

Group. I did a lot, a lot of act work. I’d still do response prevention, but I wouldn’t do, yeah, like those hard, those exposure exposures. Exposures like, oh gee, that a person could be possessed by the devil or wanting to sell their soul. I wasn’t doing, it wasn’t coming from me. It violated something within me.

Again, I leaned on that a lot.

Carrie: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Dr. Connie: Correct. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. But even then, it wasn’t the best fit. I can see it now. Yeah. I’m not saying that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy doesn’t work. I’m not saying that, or that ERP doesn’t work. But for me, this is a better fit.

And I think it’s also a better fit for a lot of the people I see. Some other folks would never do those exposures. Or how about convincing clergy to allow that. Oh my goodness. That was part of what we used to do. Yeah, let’s talk to your priest. Let’s talk to your minister. Let’s explain to them what we’re going to be doing. That was a hard

Carrie: Sure, that makes a lot of sense. I think really what you’re talking about is we have to, as therapists, have to be aligned with a particular treatment because our clients are going to feel it if we’re not fully aligned or we’re not fully bought into it. And that affects, obviously, our ability to provide the services.

And I think what you said is true is like when we find something that feels like a really good therapeutic fit for our people, then the people that come to us, it kind of just fits with them as well. It’s like this nice, natural flow. How has ICBT been helpful for your clients with scrupulosity?

Dr. Connie: One of the things that I think ICBT does is it restores. The trust in themselves, in who they really are, and also it helps them grow spiritually. So when we’re removing those obsessive doubts, and some people have told me they don’t believe those obsessive doubts anymore, and I love it. I say to people, why not? And they say, well, it doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, I love that when we can do that with someone and they’re free to then practice their faith in the way that they want to, their relationship can become so much more close.

It’s difficult work and it requires the willingness of the person to do this work, but I have seen that kind of success. I think it also, ICBT doesn’t blur the lines. As much as for me, the therapeutic exercises and the spiritual practice ICBT is value free. So anyone can come with their value systems intact and there is a respect for that and so that you don’t have to go there at all with ICBT.

And I think that another thing that happens, you mentioned the real self, and this is so important, restores what people they know, but they’re doubting their true intentions, their true desires. And who they really are. It provides this other story. The doubt has this whole set of reasons behind it. We clear that up and then we look at obsessional narrative and come up together with an alternative narrative, which in my experience often is about how they are the beloved child of God.

And it just changes everything. And then after that, then we can get into situations with reality sensing and get them back into doing things in a non OCD way. It’s just so different.

Carrie: Yeah, I loved what you talked about with the true desires and intentions because that’s something that gets really doubted heavily in some of those things that we talked about before, like the pedophilia OCD and then leading into the scrupulosity OCD.

I think there are so many Christians that because they haven’t necessarily just worked on OCD in general, it’s, oh, well, I have all these horrible thoughts, whether they’re violent thoughts or thoughts about harming children or thoughts about blaspheming God. Then they’re making some type of spiritual meaning surrounding that.

Well, because I have these awful thoughts, that must mean then therefore that I’m not a good Christian or I’m not close to God or I’m not going to heaven, whatever type of meaning they’re making out of it. And so really just being able to peel back and provide some just general education about OCD, you’re not choosing to have these thoughts.

You’re not wanting to have these thoughts. This is a process that’s happening in your brain, and we can retrain your brain and retrain your ability to reason with these types of thought processes differently and really targeting that obsession that you’re having and kind of debunking the argument that it’s making.

It has led people to be kind of aligning what you were saying with their head and their heart. Well, I know that God’s loving, but I feel this fear towards God, or I feel, I notice when I have these obsessions come along that I’m really super scared, but I know that God is loving. I know that I am practicing my faith.

I know that I’m doing the right things, but it’s not aligning. And so really going through this process of teaching people the modules of ICBT is super helpful. And also, I think just really letting people know that they have options for their treatment is so huge. You as the client have the options that somebody feels like ERP is really the way that they want to go and they feel aligned with that, that they can certainly pursue that.

And if they want to do ICBT, that they can pursue that. And I think that that’s really huge for the OCD community and something that we’re trying to continue to educate people on and let them know.

Dr. Connie: Absolutely. It’s so important what you said about the reasoning process with. ICBT, it’s kind of validating for people that these thoughts don’t just intrude upon them, that there’s a reasoning process behind it.

Once they can see that, and once they can clear that up, then they can realize that those horrible feelings that they’re having, the fear, the guilt, the false guilt, as well as that, is coming from the story. Yeah, that’s where it’s from. They change the narrative and everything changes. So how does it work?

Go back to the obsessional doubt and we’re upstream as we say. Right.

Carrie: Well, for sharing all of this information. Our listeners will find it really helpful and we’ll put links for them to find you in case they’re in New York or want to pursue seeing you.

Dr. Connie: Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And thank you for the work that you do. It’s so important to have somebody like you doing these podcasts, especially faith based work.

Carrie: I just want to share with all of you what God has been working with me on in my life. As I Have been studying the scriptures and coming across very specific scriptures that maybe I have shared with certain clients dealing with scrupulosity or scriptures that I felt, Hey, wow, this could really unlock something for someone with OCD.

I’m starting to take notes on those things, write down questions, and I’m not sure what this is going to turn into, if this is going to come out in podcast form or it’s going to come out in written form, but. I know that when I have it all collected and gathered together, I will be sharing it with you. I definitely have a passion for helping Christians with OCD to have a really healthy understanding of theology because oftentimes wires have gotten crossed along the way from Things that we’ve been told or things that we learned from imperfect parents, church situations that maybe weren’t the best or the healthiest, and sometimes those things can get us really stuck and keep us from being able to move forward in a healthy way in our relationship with God and God.

I don’t want anybody to be held back by any of those things. Until next time on the podcast, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. To receive weekly encouragement, find out about our monthly Meet the Podcast host Zoom meetings and receive information on exclusive sales, become an email insider today.

All you have to do is go to karybach. com and scroll towards the bottom of the page. You’ll find a spot to put in your email and receive a free download in your inbox from us. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person.

in and leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. Opinions given by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself or By the Well Counseling.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

148. Your Obsessional Story: Christians Learning ICBT coming Jan 2025! 

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie takes you behind the scenes of one of her ICBT training sessions, which she designed specifically for Christians dealing with OCD. She shares a snippet of Module Three, exploring how OCD weaves compelling narratives that can draw you in and offers guidance on rewriting those narratives to gain a deeper understanding of OCD’s mechanisms.

Episode Highlights:

  • The power of stories: How OCD creates vivid, relatable narratives that captivate our attention.
  • The importance of self-awareness in recognizing and rewriting your obsessional story.
  • Common pitfalls of telling ourselves negative stories and the role of shame in our experiences with OCD.
  • Exploring the concept of obsessional doubt through relatable examples.
  • Writing alternative stories as a method for reframing experiences and perceptions.
  • And more about what’s inside the Christians Learning ICBT live training, including practical tools and resources to deepen your understanding and application of these concepts.

Episode Summary:

I’m Carrie Bock—a counselor, Christ follower, wife, and mom. I’m here to help Christians facing OCD find healing through faith. Today, I want to share a bit about my ICBT (Intensive Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) training, focusing on Module 3, where we learn to recognize and rewrite those pesky obsessional stories that OCD throws at us.

Feeling Stuck with OCD?

If you’re tired of battling OCD on your own or have tried exposure therapy without much success, I understand! Starting in January, I’m launching a 12-week course where we’ll go through each ICBT module together, wrapping up in March. If you can’t join live, don’t worry—you’ll get access to all the recordings!

Join the Waiting List!

Interested? Sign up for our waiting list at carriebockcom/OCD. Together, we can transform your relationship with OCD in 2025!

Let’s Talk About Stories

We all have narratives that shape our lives, influenced by our past and our beliefs about God. It’s important to ask: Are these stories coming from God or from our fears?

OCD is great at creating emotional stories that can feel very real. Think about how a gripping movie can make you feel intense emotions, even if it’s just a story. That’s how OCD works—it hijacks our thoughts and feelings.

For example, if I tell you about an “amazing” pen found in a sketchy place, your feelings about that pen would change based on the story. This shows how changing our narratives can change our perceptions.

Rewriting Your Obsessional Stories

Today, I’ll help you recognize and reframe those obsessional stories. Instead of getting stuck in doubt, we can challenge those thoughts and find clarity.

Tune in to the full episode to learn practical tips for identifying your obsessional narratives and rewriting them in a way that aligns with the abundant life God wants for you. Let’s start this journey of healing together!

Explore Related Episode:

133. Looking for an Alternative to ERP? Find out if ICBT is Right for You

Transcript

Hello, do you love going behind the scenes? Well, today I am taking you behind the scenes to one of the ICBT training sessions that I did this fall on module three. Module three is all about how OCD draws you in with a really good story and then teaches you how to write your obsessional story to become more aware Of how OCD works and gets you drawn in.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bach. I’m a Christ follower wife and mother licensed professional counselor who helps Christian struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD. God called me to bring this podcast to you.

With practical tools for developing greater peace, we’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.

So let’s dive right into today’s episode. Brothers and sisters in Christ, OCD warriors. Are you sick and tired of fighting with OCD? Have you tried exposure therapy or tried finding counseling from a Christian perspective and just have come up short? I know so many people have told me that they have a Christian counselor but that person doesn’t know about OCD or they’ve gone to OCD counseling and something just didn’t feel right because the person didn’t understand their faith.

I want you to know that I’m here for you, and that’s why I’m excited to announce that in January, we’re going to be teaching through the 12 modules of ICBT. We talked about ICBT in more depth in episode 119 and episode 133. I will be teaching one module per week from mid January to the end of March. If you can’t make the live trainings, everything’s recorded and put in an online course platform for you to access.

If you think you might even slightly be interested, or you’re interested in being interested in finding out more information. Please join our waiting list at kerrybach. com slash OCD. About three fourths of the way down the page, there’s an option for you to put in your name and email address. Let me help you have a different relationship with OCD in 2025.

Today we’re talking about stories, the obsessional story. As I started to think about this obsessional story process, I thought, we tell ourselves stories all the time, right? And it’s not always an OCD story. We go through life, we have experiences, and we interpret them, and we tell ourself a story based on our past experience, based on other things that we’ve heard, based on what we know about God and scripture.

It’s not just about OCD. It is, that’s what we’re here to talk about and have a better relationship with, but just noticing, like, When you have experiences, what are you telling yourself? Are you telling yourself the shoulds? I should have done better, known better, been better, whatever. Are you telling yourself, yeah, you know, you should have expected that to happen because it happened in the past?

Uh, you know, a trauma story of, yep, you know, there you go again, experiencing this. Just kind of be aware of that. So, you are, as a Christian, tasked with not trusting everything that you see or hear, but really testing and seeing, is this coming from God or is this from falsehood? So, our main ideas are that OCD draws you in with a good storyline.

And that awareness of that storyline is the first step to changing it. I like to say that OCD has like these lifetime movie versions that they tell you. It’s so vivid. Sometimes you can see it happening. There’s a lot of intense emotions that goes along with it. Just thinking about stories in general, I put this little Incredible Hulk guy on here.

They draw us in with a certain level of emotion. Stories are believable or relatable. Even though we’ve never seen a guy turn into this giant green man and start destroying something. We feel related to this story because we’ve all had anger in our lives. Maybe we’ve been destructive at different points and he doesn’t want this to happen.

It just is something that kind of takes over him and happens. So even though you look at Marvel comics and things, there’s lots of stuff happening or people being able to control time or see all of the outcomes, right? That’s one of the characters, I guess, can see all the potential outcomes that could happen and people are flying and different things happening, but they’re, it.

Some of the core storylines, the characters, we really relate to them, we feel for them. I wasn’t really into a whole lot of these movies, and I went with one of my friends, and people were just, like, wanting to go see Endgame, and people were just crying in the theater, right? Like, these are characters, you know, they’re not real, but we are drawn in and we feel something, and that’s what makes a good story, right?

Like, that’s a really good story that draws you in. There’s some kind of outcome or ending to them. So there are some factual elements that can be woven in even to OCD stories. All right, now for a story about my pen. This is a pen that I have in my office. It’s a purple pen. I like the color purple. So let’s say that if you were in the office and I was like, Hey, do you want to write with this pen?

You probably would say, Sure, why not? Like, I don’t know, it looks like a good pen, it clicks, it works, you know, I’ll tell you, yeah, it writes really well, I like it. So you probably would feel okay with this pen, unless you like had major contamination and you were like, no, I don’t touch other people’s stuff, that type of stuff, and then you might be like, I’m not sure about that.

But if I could tell you a story about this pen, where And I said, yeah, this is a really great pen and I want to tell you the story of how I got this pen. I mean, I didn’t just get this pen at the store. I was out in, you know, the park and there was a pile of dog poop and I noticed this pin sticking out and I thought, oh, that pen looks like it would write really good if I cleaned it up or hey, my favorite color is purple.

I think i’ll take that pen and I took it out of the dog poop and I washed it off and I Clorox wiped. It’s fine. Everything’s good. It’s all right. Like I mean, what’s the problem? Do you notice feeling any differently about wanting to hold the pen now versus when I first started talking to you about it?

Most people, when I tell them the story, are then like, Oh, that’s gross. Like I’m not touching that pen. You know, who does that? But the point is, what changed? Did the pen actually change, or did we just change the story about the pen? And then when we changed the story about the pen, that caused us to feel differently about it.

Not only your five senses, which do get distrusted at times in OCD, but internal sense data. What do you really want? And how do you know that? Like, I can say, just random example, like, I really want pizza for dinner. Like, how do I know that? I’ve been just craving pizza, I like pizza, whatever. I’m just making stuff up as we go along, right?

But really being able to tune into your own emotional experience or your own desires is really important. I’ve talked to people before OCD will make you feel like you have an urge to do something but an internal like urge or pull towards something is not the same thing as a desire is actually wanting to do that.

So that may be something that you have to tease out in your own story and then what you actually value or believe. Jenny’s obsessional story goes like this. My husband didn’t kiss me this morning before he left for work. That is a true statement. That did really happen to her. But now this obsessional doubt injures then, what if he has fallen out of love with me?

I mean, Sally is going through a divorce right now and her husband just left her out of nowhere. That’s the hearsay evidence. Just because it happened to Sally doesn’t mean it’ll happen to Jenny. But that’s what OCD wants her to believe that it will. My ex boyfriend did something similar. Personal experience.

OCD feels like it’s really like, hey, I’ve really got some evidence here for you. I read an article about how if your man doesn’t kiss you before you leave the house, that is one sign he’s out the door. He could be cheating on me. It’s possible. Now we’ve got like, you know, almost like another obsessional doubt coming in there, right?

Like, oh, what if he’s cheating? People leave and get divorces all the time. Yeah, I really can’t argue with that fact. Um, What if I’m next? I couldn’t handle it. Consequences of obsessional doubt. This piece, like, of not being able to handle it, that kind of dips the toe into the water of the feared self theme.

You may be saying, like, Oh, well, that’s a nice story carry. Now what do I do with it? Just remember that you’re still in the phases of building awareness. We’re not necessarily intervening right now, but if you can intervene, or you may pick up on like, oh, now that I pick up on that OCD, I’m not gonna give into it as much as I would have before.

I’m not gonna entertain it like I would have in the past. So just kind of be aware of that piece coming down the pike. All right, talking about having a shameful thought, maybe it’s a sexual or blasphemy thought, and then like, oh, that goes into, I shouldn’t be having this as a Christian. What does this mean?

What if this means I’m not a good Christian or don’t love God? And I think I stuck with the don’t love God, because obviously some of these could be going a lot of different directions, right? And then these are some of the things that I’m, the potential consequences that I’m calling myself. What if I don’t love God?

Well, not everyone does. That’s a fact. Rules, you know, take your thoughts captive. Watch the things that come into your mind that you think about. Lots of information on that in various places. Spiritual guidance, pastors, teachers, authors, podcasts, so much, so much information out there now. Personal experience of maybe what a former church taught and then anything possible according to OCD.

So let’s look at this obsessional story. So I have these intrusive sexual thoughts. It’s a fact. I can’t change that. What if I don’t really love God and that’s why I have these thoughts? So that would be our obsessional doubt that we stuck with for this example, but it could have gone, as you see, there were other obsessional doubts.

And so whichever one you choose, that probably is going to take the story a little bit different in a direction. That’s okay. That’s what my previous church said. hearsay. I have to rebuke this thought in the name of Jesus. That’s a compulsion. I have to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.

That is true according to the Bible. When I was addicted to pornography, I was dwelling on thoughts I shouldn’t. That would be a personal experience. And if I don’t win the battle of my mind, I’m giving the enemy a foothold. The consequences of the doubt. So some of you may be, um, a little bit overwhelmed too on, okay, Carrie, I have a lot of different obsessions.

What do I write my obsessional story on? I’m going to give you some guidance. Sometimes, very occasionally, the anxiety about writing the obsessional story or seeing it out like Just out there can be super super high for certain themes So I would say if that’s the case We’re really in the interest of you learning the process right now, right?

If that’s the case if it is too anxiety provoking I mean like gonna give you a panic attack is what i’m trying to say Not to say that writing obsessional stories shouldn’t cause you any anxiety But if you’re like panicking trying to write your obsessional story You Maybe try working on something that is either a past experience, like it’s not bothering you now, but it did in the past, just so that you can learn and process it and sit with it, or picking something that is still an obsession, but it’s a lower level, like not going to send you into a panic.

And then once you feel like you have the flow of what you’re writing and the process of putting those pieces together, then that is going to help you be able to. probably sit with the harder one. Even if we have multiple stories, the feared self or vulnerable self theme is going to run between those stories.

So they’re going to be similar. A lot of times there is a common thread and that’s going to be your common thread. So if you do end up like writing a couple stories, if you feel inclined to do that. I wouldn’t literally like write more than two. I mean, remember, we’re not wanting to like obsess about treatment.

So if you wrote a couple stories and kind of compared them, I was like, Oh, okay. Like there should be some type of overlap or pattern that you’re seeing. Rely, whether it’s, hey, I’m seeing in both of these stories that I’m really relying on hearsay evidence, or I’m seeing in both of these stories that I’m really relying on past personal experience that may be related to my trauma, or I’m noticing it’s like the same exact personal experience, even though the themes may be different for you.

And you would want to look at like, okay, what can I glean from this? What’s the pattern here? Because obviously you’re not wanting, like I said, if you have a lot of different themes, you’re not wanting to run the gamut for every single thing in your life. You don’t want to have to do this, I guess, is what I’m trying to say for every single thing.

And usually information like this will generalize. So, recognize that you only got about 12 minutes of a 50 minute training. Obviously this was not intended to be comprehensive, but just to give you a snippet and a sneak peek inside the training and the examples that I use to help people understand the concept.

mindfulness, a prayer. There’s a scripture verse for every week. And we dive into the lesson, and all of that is so intentional so that we can put our mind, heart, and spirit in alignment and in the right place. We’ve had some amazing question and answer times in the beginning and end, so know that you completely have the freedom to ask questions.

People will type them in the chat or they will email me privately and I can answer it publicly. So there, even if you aren’t able to attend live, there’s still opportunities to ask questions so that you can really get in there and apply these materials. Next week we’re going behind the scenes again to talk through writing alternative stories and I’m going to share a true experience that happened to me, how I wrote an obsessional story about it, I did make up that part, and then what a potential alternative story would be.

Definitely tune in for part two next week. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review.

This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.