How to get rid of obsessive thoughts and fears

I work as a psychologist for more than 10 years in one of the rehabilitation psychological centers. Once, on the threshold of this center, I met a girl who, somehow, hesitantly climbed the steps of the stairs. After some time, there was a knock at the door, it turned out that this is the same girl with whom I met at the entrance to the center. She didn’t even introduce herself, immediately began with the question: "Do you know how to get rid of fears and obsessive thoughts that have been haunting for more than 10 years?"

Making contact

During the consultation it was revealed that the client, let's call her Tatiana, grew up in a foster family. I learned about the existence of biological parents at the age of 13. Got into the adoptive family, for the reason that her biological mother, committed a brutal crime - killed in a fit of anger her friend. Tatiana's mother was put for 15 years, and Tatiana herself was transferred to the next of kin for upbringing.

Tatiana's biological mother is parole 12 years later and is released from prison and appears on the threshold of the house where Tatiana lived with her foster family. So Tatiana learned that this woman is her biological mother, respectively, learns that she is an adopted daughter. Then it turned out that almost all the closest relatives - from the grandparents, from the mother and father, ending with other relatives, all have a criminal record. Moreover, almost half of those who served or served their sentences were sent to prison because of the murder.

The first thing I noticed: Tatiana, suffered severe stress while still in her teens. The news that she is an adopted daughter and that her relatives are not among the most worthy people on this planet is difficult to survive at any age. In adolescence, this problem seems to be global at least twice.

Closer to the age of 15, the client began to seriously think that their kin, on both the maternal and paternal lines, was cursed, since such a number of convicted relatives could not be the result of a banal coincidence.

Second: the negative situation that Tatiana experienced at the age of 13 formed a strong negative emotion in the form of a response to the appearance of a biological mother in her life. Now her mother has become the source of her inner fears. Every time when she had to meet with her mother, her inner self began to warn her of imminent danger.

From Tatiana's stories, it was revealed that by the age of 18 she had a fear that one day, not wanting this, would also turn out to be, like her parents, relatives behind bars. Constant thoughts and fear for their lives began to drastically change the life of my client. She consciously began to avoid situations that she thought could bring her to prison. For example, she abandoned her childhood dream of becoming a doctor. It seemed to her that this profession was a direct way to jail, one had only to make one mistake. Gradually, Tatyana began to move away from her friends, she was afraid that one of them would once provoke a conflict, after which one careless movement on her part would result in the death of a friend, etc.

The last straw, according to Tatyana, was the case when she hid in the closet from the heard siren of a police car outside the window.

Obviously, by the age of 23, Tatyana's emotion of fear had passed into a stable emotional state of anxiety, which in turn accumulated in the subconscious and once turned into obsessive thoughts and fears. Despite the fact that Tatiana was aware that something was wrong with her, independently understanding the senselessness of her fears was still outside her volitional sphere.

Stages of psychological correctional work

Correctional work with clients who do not know how to get rid of obsessive forms of fear and thoughts is built on the following principle:

Search for a source: a client, under the strict guidance of a psychologist, independently identifies all the factors that are possibly the main sources of his problem. For the implementation of this technique, the psychologist uses metaphorical cards.
To help the client stop cultivating his fear. This problem is solved by special autohypnosis techniques. Autohypnosis allows you to lay in the human subconscious mind positive attitudes that drastically change the client's perception of their life situations.
Eliminate lasting causal relationships. Breaking into the consciousness of the client steady connections, for example, such as "got up from the left foot - the day will be unsuccessful"
Revaluation of values - the final stage of work on your "I".