Religious OCD

When we speak about scrupulosity, we tend to speak about the obsessions and compulsions that individuals with OCD have that pertain to religious themes, hyper-morality, pathological doubt/worry about possible sin, and excessive religious behaviour (Witzing 2020). There are many mental and behavioural compulsions that OCD sufferers use to cope with their religious obsessions. The mental compulsions may begin with overanalyzing and attempting to understand how to convince oneself that sin is forgivable (Grayson 2014).  Other attempts may include thinking the sin is not a sin at all.

Typically, the symptoms usually revolve around moral and religious teachings of a particular religious group. This means that OCD suffers may focus their attention to themes related to situations that they ‘shouldn’t’ be doing, such as lying or being impure. Some themes may include blasphemy, sex, violence, and being pure. Some OCD sufferers may resonate with feeling of disgust with the intrusive thought (for example, the thought of having sex with god). They may judge themselves for having these thoughts, which in turn creates more of a downward spiral of despair and worry. They may even obsess about the content of the thought and further self-criticize. At times, people may think of these thoughts as an act of god or a demonic possession. Sometimes OCD sufferers may also just accept their thoughts without questioning them. Accepting them as completely valid may likely lead to further questioning (e.g. am I really at peace with god?). Thoughts like this, may spur obsessional rumination (thinking about the thought over and over).

According to Purdon & Clark’s text, Overcoming Obsessive Thoughts, there is no evidence that religion may cause obsessive compulsive disorder. What we are aware of is that your religious experience may influence the type of obsessions that you have (Witzing 2020). Sally Winston in her text, Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts, argues, “the thoughts that you don’t want to have are the ones that get stuck…these are thoughts you fight- and because you fight them, they stick. If you are someone with strong religious beliefs, you sometimes come up with blasphemous thoughts.” She indicates that the thoughts you don’t want are neutral and the thoughts you care so much about are often likely stuck because you value them so highly (Winston 2019).

Many OCD sufferers may believe that searching through faith will provide them with certainty. This may mean overanalyzing scriptures or passages or seeking guidance from religious leaders. In a lecture presented by Witzing in 2020, he argued that faith does not equal certainty, but rather faith is trusting god through the uncertainty. OCD tends to latch on to the doubt and it wants you to believe that uncertainty and doubt are dangerous (Witzing 2020). What we want to help our clients realize is that uncertainty is tolerable. He argues that faith is what you believe and not what you feel. He argues that your feelings are not facts.

Part of acceptance and commitment therapy is practicing your faith despite not knowing what the end result will be (e.g. being punished). This means that if you have sinned then we need to practice acceptance and moving on. Witzing states “if you wonder if you have sinned (e.g., ‘what if I…?’) or aren’t sure if you have, then you need to move on and go forward as if you didn’t (Witzing 2020). Keep moving forward.” Those who seek to recover would have to embrace exposure and response prevention combined with acceptance and commitment therapy. At no point during treatment would your religious beliefs be violated or undermine your faith. If you would like to find out more about our program, please feel free to contact us. We would be glad to provide more information.

Witzing, Ted, OCD Conference, IOCDF, 2020.

Grayson, Jon. Freedom for OCD, Berkley Publishing, 2014.

Winston, Sally. Overcoming Obsessive Unwanted Thoughts, New Harbinger Publications, 2019.