Q: Hi, Mr Neuman I have recently been having sexual thoughts that I cant get out of my head. I am very scared that I may act upon them when I wake up it is the forst thing in my mind and the last thing when I sleep. It feels liek torture. I thnk it might be POCD; but i just like to ask if you could recomment any coping strategies and if people have evr gotten “cured” from pocd.
A: Someone did a study which inquired into how often men and women had sexual thoughts during the day. The number reported back varied between few or none to as many as a number of sexual thoughts every few minutes! Needless to say, these thoughts did not precipitate sexual behavior the vast majority of the time. However, those people experiencing sexual thoughts did not regard them as upsetting. They understood quite well that their feelings were under their control. The fact that you are concerned that you will lose control of your sexual feelings and do something marks these thoughts as an obsession.
Obsessional thoughts tend to have the character of imagining the worst thing possible. The most common are violent thoughts, or pictures of violent behavior, often against innocent and helpless individuals, such as children. The next most common are forbidden sexual thoughts, usually of a homosexual nature. These are not accompanied by sexual arousal. They take the form of “Wouldn’t it be awful if I…” If I kissed that person suddenly, for example.
Not infrequently, these obsessions go away by themselves. Often they go away when they are described in detail to a therapist. They are often ridiculous in nature and can be seen in those terms when they become explicit. The reaction of the therapist helps to put them in context. I think the obsessional person can often be de-sensitized to these ideas by writing them down, sometimes in colored pencils. When they seem silly, they begin to evaporate.
– Dr. Neuman