TOPIC

Obsessions/Compulsions



An obsession or compulsion is an unhealthy attention to something or someone. It begins with a thought that is accompanied with anxiety or fear. Because it involves taking an action that results in a relief of the anxiety or fear, a cycle of repetition takes root, leading to greater attachment to both the anxiety and the now compulsive behavior that relieves it. We come to believe that if we don’t do the compulsive behavior, terrible things will happen. Obsessive behavior shows itself in many forms and can include personal cleanliness, environmental manipulations, or bodily actions. The compulsive behavior is in effect addictive for its ability to relieve the fear. There are many good healing approaches to compulsive or obsessive behaviors, which left unchecked often cause harm or result in unwelcome consequences.

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Confessions of a Kleptomaniac

I became a drug addict only years after I'd discovered my first true love: Compulsive thieving.

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What Your Brain Really Wants

Your life depends on your brain. To be the ethical, engaged, creative, successful, and lively human being you intend to be, you need your brain. You need your brain and you also need to use your brain. It is not enough to possess a perfectly good brain—you must also use it.

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Enneagram Type 5 by Russ Hudson

Russ Hudson, co-founder of the Enneagram Institute, explains the essence of Enneagram Type 5.

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Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD: A Scientifically Proven Program for Parents

Parenting an anxious child means facing constant challenges and questions: When should parents help children avoid anxiety-provoking situations, and when should they encourage them to face their fears? How can parents foster independence while still supporting their children? How can parents reduce...

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Finding Freedom with Food: A Q&A with Geneen Roth

Kripalu presenter Geneen Roth is a writer and teacher whose work uses compulsive behaviors as a path to the inner universe. Her books include the number-one New York Times best-seller, Women, Food and God and Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money.

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Too Many Gay Men Still Hate Their Bodies

It’s no secret that certain segments of the gay community hold high, near-oppressive standards of what counts as sexually attractive. Countless gay men have struggled to see themselves within it as a result.

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Is Obesity a Mental Health Issue?

Understanding the mind/body connection.

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Addiction

All addictions have the capacity to induce a sense of hopelessness and feelings of failure, as well as shame and guilt, but research documents that recovery is the rule rather than the exception.

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The Field

When a field (which has been farmed by the McCabe family for generations) goes up for auction, the patriarch of the McCabe family will stop at nothing to prevent a rich American from buying it.

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Oscar and Lucinda

After a childhood of abuse by his evangelistic father, misfit Oscar Hopkins (Ralph Fiennes) becomes an Anglican minister and develops a divine obsession with gambling.

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WHAT MIGHT HELP

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The information offered here is not a substitute for professional advice. Please proceed with care and caution.

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Anxiety