# Existential OCD



## Daniel (Mar 2, 2018)

OCD3: What is Existential OCD? - YouTube

Sent from my XT1609 using Tapatalk


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## Daniel (Nov 15, 2018)

To Be Or Not To Be, That Is The Obsession: Existential and Philosophical OCD


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## Daniel (Dec 2, 2018)

“When all else is stripped away physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, even existentially—we still have as our last vestige of human freedom the ability to choose at any given moment or in any circumstance how we may find meaning in our suffering.” 

-- Viktor Frankl


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## David Baxter PhD (Dec 2, 2018)

What always impressed me about Viktor Frankl, even from when I first discovered him at age 16 in his book _Man's Search For Meaning_, is that no one has a better reason, right, and history for statements like this, born as they were in Auschwitz with the constant threat of death at any moment hanging over his head for years even after most of his family had already been killed.

See: Dr. Viktor E. Frankl of Vienna, Psychiatrist of the Search for Meaning, Dies at 92 - The New York Times

He was a shining testament to the true power of the human spirit.


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## Daniel (Sep 22, 2020)

Overcoming the Fear of Death
by David Burns

Many existential therapists believe that the fear of death is at the root of a great deal of anxiety, if not all anxiety. My clinical experience has not been consistent with this notion. I've had nearly 40,000 therapy sessions with patients struggling with anxiety, and very few had the fear of death.

But I have seen three kinds of patients who were afraid of death:


    Patients with panic disorder who think they're on the verge of death during their panic attack
    Obsessive patients without panic disorder who are preoccupied with the fear of dying.
    Patients with terminal illnesses.
In my experience, all of these categories are pretty easy to treat...

*Patients without panic attacks who fear death.* These patients can usually be treated rapidly as well. You’ll find out how in this ten-minute podcast on overcoming the fear of death! If you fear death, or have patients who are afraid of death, try the simple and fast method I describe in the podcast. You’ll probably think it couldn’t possibly help—and then you may discover that your fear of death has suddenly disappeared!


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## Daniel (Nov 26, 2020)

Why We Fear Death and How to Overcome It
Sept 2, 2020

People with better physical health tend to fear death less. Researchers have found that those with better physical health tend to feel like there is more meaning in life. They also tend to have better mental health. These are the factors that make them fear death less. In a way, this can be encouraging even for those who cannot control their physical health. They may still be able to find meaning in life and work on their mental health to decrease their existential dread.


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## Daniel (Nov 28, 2020)

Just Keep Going
Nov 27, 2020 

We humans have an almost pathetic desperation for certainty, despite the entirely uncertain world we live in. For some, not to know is excruciating agony...

One of the most poignant examples I have ever come across of desperation for certainty was that of a man whom palliative care specialist Rachel Clarke wrote about in her moving book _Dear Life_. Roger had been terrified ever since he was a child by not knowing when he would die, and had suffered over the years from severe anxiety and depression.

Yet, when he was brought into the hospice, in serious pain, paralysed from the waist down by advanced prostate cancer and with the knowledge that he had just days or weeks to live, he was smiling broadly. Once his pain had been sorted out, he said, "I feel free. This is the first time in my life I have ever felt relaxed. None of my fears bothers me anymore. All the things like the kindness of nurses, a massage in the morning, time with my family - I can just enjoy them without worrying."

...We are resilient creatures and we can, indeed, keep going for as long as it takes when we set our minds to it. If we can admire the view along the way, better still.


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## Daniel (Dec 1, 2020)

Existential OCD  FearCast Podcast

"With OCD and anxiety, it's not a thought problem, it's a feeling problem."

~ Kevin Foss, MFT


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## Daniel (Jan 29, 2021)

New Harbinger's interview with Steve Hayes (2006)

Pain is just pain. We all have it--all the time if you just look. For example, we all know we will die. There is some pain in that knowledge, and you can contact that knowledge anytime, anywhere. But that alone is not suffering. If you add in unwillingness to feel pain, entanglement with your thoughts about pain, and loss of your valued actions--now you've amplified pain into suffering. I've seen that exact thing happen with thoughts about death, for example. But YOU did it. The pain didn't do it. You see this in area after area: Anxiety + unwillingness to feel anxiety and keep moving in a valued direction = panic. Sadness, loss, anxiety, or anger + unwillingness to feel sadness, loss, anxiety, or anger while moving in a valued direction = depression. Pain + unwillingness to feel pain = trauma.


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## Daniel (Feb 13, 2021)

How Childhood Emotional Neglect Makes Adult Life Feel Meaningless
by Dr. Jonice Webb

_...Welcome your emotions back into your life._

I have seen over and over again that these three deceptively simple steps can make a huge difference in how important your life feels to you.


*Try to feel:* This may sound strange but it actually works. Making an effort to have an emotion will start to yield results. You will start to feel more.


*Tune in to your feelings:* Chances are, youre having feelings all the time, but you are simply not aware of them. All this takes is focusing your attention more on what youre feeling. Several times a day pause, focus your attention inward, and ask yourself, What am I feeling right now?


*Increase your feeling word vocabulary:*An important part of getting in touch with your feelings is being able to put words to them. You can find an exhaustive Feeling Word List [attached].
I know it may be hard to believe, but to me it’s abundantly clear…

*The fuel of life is feeling. If were not filled up in childhood, we must fill ourselves as adults. Otherwise we will find ourselves running on empty.*


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## Daniel (Feb 16, 2021)

I Had No Idea My ‘Existential Crises’ Were a Symptom of OCD
					


A lot of people think of OCD as being a “quirky” disorder. The reality is that it can be incredibly scary. What others might think of as a harmless philosophical question became entangled with my mental illness, wreaking havoc in my life.





					www.healthline.com
				




The International OCD Foundation describes existential OCD as “intrusive, repetitive thinking about questions which cannot possibly be answered, and which may be philosophical or frightening in nature, or both.”

The questions usually revolve around:

the meaning, purpose, or reality of life
the existence and nature of the universe
the existence and nature of the self
certain existential concepts like infinity, death, or reality
While you might encounter such questions in a philosophy class or in the plotline of films like “The Matrix,” a person would usually move on from such thoughts. If they experienced distress, it would be momentary.

For someone with existential OCD, though, the questions persist. The distress it evokes can be completely disabling.


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## Daniel (Feb 22, 2021)

International OCD Foundation | To Be Or Not To Be, That Is The Obsession: Existential and Philosophical OCD
					


by Fred Penzel, PhD This article was initially published in the Fall 2013 edition of the OCD Newsletter.   Many people in the general public and the media have a very stereotypical...  Read more »





					iocdf.org
				




The most important thing to know is, based upon what we now know about treating OCD, you do not have to suffer! There is effective treatment out there, no matter what “flavor” of OCD you have — including Existential OCD. *Every day that you are not getting help is another day you have to suffer. *If you aren’t having much luck finding a treatment provider on your own, check out the “Find A Therapist” page on the IOCDF website to find an OCD treatment provider in your local area (International OCD Foundation | Find Help).


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## Daniel (Feb 23, 2021)

Subtypes of obsessive-compulsive disorder and their relationship to death anxiety
					


Recent theoretical and empirical research has demonstrated a relationship between death anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), with a focus …





					www.sciencedirect.com
				



October 2020

Taken together, the findings demonstrate a strong relationship between death anxiety and the differing forms of OCD. Clinical implications include the possibility that fears of death may need to be directly addressed in order to produce long-term symptom amelioration. However, further research is needed to establish the potential causal role of death anxiety across different OCD subtypes...

Death anxiety has also been argued to play a role in other constructs which are central to OCD, such as indecisiveness. Indecisiveness has been shown to be driven by perfectionism and worries about making mistakes (Frost & Shows, 1993). Le Marne and Harris (2016) proposed that perfectionism is a means of dealing with death anxiety. Whilst often maladaptive, perfectionism may cultivate a sense of achievement or control, and increase self-esteem, a construct which has repeatedly been shown to allay fears of death (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986). In support of this notion, significant positive correlations have been found between death anxiety and both perfectionism and concern over mistakes (Le Marne & Harris, 2016; Saboonchi & Lundh, 1997). These findings suggest that death anxiety may play a role in the presentations of individuals whose OCD is dominated by indecisiveness. However, neither of these studies utilised a clinical sample or measures designed to assess OCD symptomology in particular...


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## Daniel (Feb 23, 2021)




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## Daniel (Mar 4, 2021)

Existential OCD: An Obsession with Why - Impulse
					


OCD is a commonly misunderstood disease. In the eyes of the general population, it’s often perceived as an illness based on neurosis or personality quirks. Society sees OCD sufferers as particular people who keep their homes tidy, color code their soup cans, and wash their hands…a lot.





					impulsetherapy.com
				




Regardless of the flavor, OCD is really about uncertainty. It’s about doubt, the what if, and second guessing everything. All sufferers, independent of the specifics of their thoughts, share that in common: OCD tells them that they have to know.


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## Daniel (Mar 19, 2021)

Why Ask Why?
					


Sometimes we just need to move on.





					www.psychologytoday.com
				



by Lois Holzman Ph.D.
Sometimes we just need to move on.​
_Why is the sky blue? Why does snow melt? Why do people die? Why is that man sleeping on the street? Why can’t I have ice cream? Why do I have to go to bed?_

Young children are full of questions like these. They’ve learned from us that people ask _why_. As philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein would say, they’ve learned to play a _language game_ (a “form of life” or activity that human beings engage in), and through playing this particular language game over and over and over, they come to see and experience things and events _causally_ and to expect that everything they encounter in the world is either the cause or the effect of something else...

Once we’re adults, “Why?” stays with us...

While mainstream therapy (of both the talk and drug variety) reinforces a causal view of the world, to those of us who practice non-causal approaches it is clear that much of people’s emotional pain comes _from_ thinking causally—and we’re finding more and more evidence that challenging this way of thinking can be extremely helpful to people...


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## Daniel (Mar 19, 2021)

*








						Do You Know What Self-Care Is?
					


It's easy to fool ourselves into thinking we know what's going to happen.





					www.psychologytoday.com
				



*by Lois Holzman Ph.D.

...There’s another kind of unknown that refers not just to what’s unknown for now, but for tomorrow and, indeed, for all time. It’s unknown, yes, but that’s because it’s actually _unknow-able_. It’s this kind of unknown—the unknowable—that interests me as a psychologist. For if we look at the synonyms for unknowable, we find cabalistic, esoteric, mysterious, occult, and mystical—ways of seeing that rational beings should reject and even fear. Together, they paint a picture of some other world, not the one we “know.” Such is the cultural bias we live with—making it just about inconceivable that life on earth could be unknowable.

My professional experience leads me to see this bias as a form of self-harm. That’s because much, maybe even most, of our lives is, in fact, unknowable, and to not be able to see this (and move on to embrace it) is a setup for disappointment, paralysis, sadness, and more...


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## Daniel (Mar 21, 2021)

Hearing about the Big Bang for the First Time
					


A jaded old science writer rediscovers the thrill of science by teaching undergraduates





					www.scientificamerican.com
				




"My goal is not just to get students to ooh and ahh over the directed-panspermia hypothesis of life’s origin, which says that aliens might have planted the seeds of life here on earth; or integrated information theory, a conjecture about how matter makes minds; or the fractal, chaotic, eternally self-reproducing inflationary model of our cosmic origin. *My primary goal is to get my students to appreciate the mysteries that these dubious theories purport to solve.*"


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## Daniel (Mar 25, 2021)




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## Daniel (Apr 17, 2021)

A Quiet Ego Quiets Death Anxiety: Humility as an Existential Anxiety Buffer
					


A Quiet Ego Quiets Death Anxiety: Humility as an Existential Anxiety Buffer




					www.academia.edu
				




It is worth considering, in light of the present findings, the relationship between humility and self-esteem, and their respective roles in terror management processes. Writings on humility repeatedly make the point that it is the secure who are humble, that no ego paradoxically is strong ego. Genuine humility, characterized by being able to acknowledge one's limitations and not needing to resort to defensiveness under ego threat, indeed connotes a firmly grounded sense of self-worth.


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## Daniel (May 10, 2021)

APA PsycNet
					







					psycnet.apa.org
				




Persons high in perfectionistic concerns not only tend to catastrophize their life experiences but also struggle to accept their life experiences and to negotiate a sense of purpose, direction, and coherence in their lives. With both a catastrophic view of their present and a dark view of their past, this investigation also suggests persons high in perfectionistic concerns are at risk for depressive symptoms.


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## Daniel (May 14, 2021)

Existential Depression: Symptoms, in Gifted People, and Coping
					


Ever find yourself questioning your purpose in life or dwelling on the weight of the world? You might be dealing with existential depression.





					www.healthline.com
				




Feeling trapped in a search for deeper meaning, unable to move forward from the point of crisis, can prompt what Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski described as a “disintegration” of the self...

Along this line of thinking, existential depression can eventually lead to what Dabrowski termed reintegration. This involves a new level of deeper understanding, self-awareness, and self-acceptance.

The path to reintegration generally involves reconciling yourself to existential questions and distress and learning to manage these feelings through choices that add meaning to your life, such as living out personal values.


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## Daniel (May 21, 2021)

Steven Hayes is good at articulating the problem here:



> When Life Seems Pointless
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Daniel (May 21, 2021)

Amazon.com: Can't Stop Thinking: How to Let Go of Anxiety and Free Yourself from Obsessive Rumination eBook : Colier, Nancy, Bodian, Stephan: Kindle Store
					


Amazon.com: Can't Stop Thinking: How to Let Go of Anxiety and Free Yourself from Obsessive Rumination eBook : Colier, Nancy, Bodian, Stephan: Kindle Store




					www.amazon.com


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## Daniel (May 22, 2021)

Philosophy
					







					xkcd.com


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## Daniel (May 22, 2021)

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals
					


Subscription and open access journals from SAGE Publishing, the world's leading independent academic publisher.





					journals.sagepub.com
				




In people’s imagination, dying seems dreadful; however, these perceptions may not reflect reality...

Death is inevitable, but dread is not. These two studies reveal that the experience of dying is unexpectedly positive...


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## Daniel (May 22, 2021)

The unanswered questions
					







					encyclopediaofbuddhism.org
				





> The Buddha always told his disciples not to waste their time and energy in metaphysical speculation. Whenever he was asked a metaphysical question, he remained silent. Instead, he directed his disciples toward practical efforts. Questioned one day about the problem of the infinity of the world, the Buddha said, "Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same." Another time he said, "Suppose a man is struck by a poisoned arrow and the doctor wishes to take out the arrow immediately. Suppose the man does not want the arrow removed until he knows who shot it, his age, his parents, and why he shot it. What would happen? If he were to wait until all these questions have been answered, the man might die first." Life is so short. It must not be spent in endless metaphysical speculation that does not bring us any closer to the truth.
> 
> — Thich Nhat Hanh


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## Daniel (Jun 3, 2021)

Existential nihilism - Wikipedia
					







					en.wikipedia.org
				




The common thread in the literature of the existentialists is coping with the emotional anguish arising from our confrontation with nothingness, and they expended great energy responding to the question of whether surviving it was possible. Their answer was a qualified "Yes," advocating a formula of passionate commitment and impassive stoicism.

— Alan Pratt


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## Daniel (Jun 19, 2021)

Life as a bad dream:

“We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.”  
~ Arthur Schopenhauer


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## David Baxter PhD (Jun 19, 2021)

Well, that's uplifting.


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## Daniel (Jun 19, 2021)

At least with me, I think existential OCD is a theme that gives me a break (or secondary gain) from dealing with other OCD themes.   So what is good for OCD in general is good for existential OCD.  For example, regarding "fear of self" and pathological guilt:


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## Daniel (Jun 20, 2021)

Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World - Kindle edition by Landau, Iddo. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
					


Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World - Kindle edition by Landau, Iddo. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World.




					www.amazon.com


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## Daniel (Jun 25, 2021)

How Learning About Death Helped My OCD
					


Sometimes OCD develops after the death of a loved one. Marianne Eloise explains how coming to terms with dying has helped her condition.





					www.refinery29.com
				




Accepting the things we cannot control is a necessary part of overcoming most manifestations of OCD. As death acceptance becomes less alternative, it’s my hope that we can all learn to talk openly about the inevitable end we all face and my belief that a culture of honesty might have helped me as an obsessive compulsive child.


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## Daniel (Jul 7, 2021)




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## Daniel (Jul 23, 2021)




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## Daniel (Jul 29, 2021)

Death Anxiety and Clinical Practice
					


Robert Langs argues that death anxiety is neglected - in part, because of treatment failures due to countertransference interferences during treatment. He then discusses the technical issues connected with this, whilst introducing the controversial concept that mental activities are derived from...




					www.google.com


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## Daniel (Aug 12, 2021)

“Somehow, like so many people who get depressed, we felt our depressions were more complicated and existentially based than they actually were.” 

  ―      Kay Redfield Jamison,         _ An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness _


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## Daniel (Aug 31, 2021)

The lure of death: suicide and human evolution | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
					


At some point in evolutionary history, human beings came to understand, as no non-human animals do, that death brings to an end a person's bodily and mental presence in the world. A potentially devastating consequence was that individuals, seeking to ...




					royalsocietypublishing.org
				



The lure of death: suicide and human evolution​by Nicholas Humphrey

...What does make life worth living? The poet Byron wrote ‘The great object of life is sensation, to feel that we exist even though in pain’ [28, p. 28]. I suggested earlier that, in the course of history, suicide might have been countered by some newly evolved appetite for staying alive. Humans collectively might have come up with some knock-down philosophical argument to chase away Santayana's scepticism. Maybe so, though we have yet to see it. But how much more promising, at the level of the individual, if natural selection acting on human genes could have found an answer internal to the self. Could mere—mere?—_sensory consciousness_ have been refashioned in the course of human evolution just so as to make people pause before they seek oblivion?

‘There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there’s likewise the wind on the heath.’ The words are from Lavengro, the autobiographical novel of the Victorian adventurer George Borrow. As Borrow tells it, he has been reading Goethe. He's toying with the idea of suicide. He gets into conversation with a Romany gypsy, Jasper, whom he has befriended on his travels. ‘What is your opinion of death?’ says Borrow, as he sits down beside him. ‘Life is sweet, brother, who would wish to die?’ ‘I would wish to die’, says Borrow. ‘You talk like a fool’, says Jasper. ‘Wish to die indeed! There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live for ever’ [29, p. 180].

It strikes a deeply human chord. We _get_ it. But stop to consider just how unexpected this is. How come these sweet things—‘the sun, moon and stars', ‘the wind on the heath’—can be reasons not to kill ourselves? How come we humans are so awestruck by sensory experience [30]?

The phenomenal quality of consciousness is widely regarded as a mystery. I've argued in my book _Soul dust_ [31] that its very mysteriousness is an adaptive feature. The seemingly magical qualities of sensation—the redness of red, the saltiness of salt and the paininess of pain—have been specifically designed by natural selection to impress us with their inexplicable out-of-the-world properties. Human consciousness on this level exists as a biological adaptation precisely to ‘change the value we place on our own existence’ [32].

I've been taken to task by critics for suggesting that any biologically evolved organism could need a reason to live over and above the imperatives of life itself. But human beings are not _any_ organism. They are the first to have had to wonder whether it's all worthwhile. We've seen in this paper the dark side. If there's a bright side, it may be that humans have come to live—perforce—in a strikingly beautiful world.


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## Daniel (Sep 8, 2021)

“Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.”

― Miriam Toews, _Swing Low: A Life_


“Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happened then you can also live without a complete understanding of how. And in a way that's kind of relaxing.”

  ―      Miriam Toews,            _A Complicated Kindness _


     “Doubt and uncertainty and questioning are inextricably bound together with faith.”

“Freedom is good...it's better than slavery. And forgiveness is good, better than revenge. And hope for the unknown is good, better than hatred of the familiar.”

_―      _Miriam Toews_,            Women Talking_


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## Daniel (Oct 1, 2021)

When the World Breaks Down: A 3-Stage Existential Model of Nihilism in Schizophrenia
					


The existential crisis of nihilism in schizophrenia has been reported since the early days of psychiatry. Taking first-person accounts concerning nihilistic experiences of both the self and the world as vantage point, we aim to develop a dynamic existential model of the pathological development...





					www.karger.com


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## Daniel (Oct 2, 2021)

Mindfulness and Feelings of Emptiness 



> There are many psychological disorders in which the feeling of emptiness generally presents itself as a transitory symptom (e.g., eating disorders,obsessive compulsive disorders, PTSD, schizophrenia) or as a rather stable phenomenological condition (personality disorders). Describing all these disorders is beyond the scope of this chapter, so we will limit the following discussion to pathologies where the feeling of emptiness often appears to be a central and recurrent experience of the pathology...


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## Daniel (Oct 13, 2021)

Existential OCD or a 'Deep Thinker'? How to Tell The Difference
					


Existential OCD is characterized by the preoccupation with philosophical questions related to life and existence. For example, someone with existential





					www.treatmyocd.com
				




Existential OCD is characterized by the preoccupation with philosophical questions related to life and existence. For example, someone with existential OCD might experience intrusive thoughts centered on the meaning of life, the universe, and/or their human existence. They might experience frequent doubt about their perceptions of reality. Someone with existential OCD might also experience recurrent feelings of depersonalization and derealization, which only exacerbate their doubts about their experiences of reality. They might also frequently question the purpose of life. 

As with other presentations of OCD, it is helpful to look beyond the content of the obsessions and consider more the relationship between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Just as someone with religious scrupulosity might appear to be an extremely devout follower of their faith, someone with existential OCD might appear to be a “deep thinker.” In fact, there is a whole field devoted to figuring out the meaning of life, and yet, not every philosopher has existential OCD. 

So, what’s the difference?

The meaning one makes of their thoughts, the urgent distress one feels because of their thoughts, and the behaviors that follow this distress, is what separates people with OCD from those with a genuine interest in existential inquiries. 

Commonly, individuals with existential OCD experience an urgency to arrive at some sort of answer to these unanswerable questions. The lack of conclusion causes anguish for these individuals, which detracts from their ability to engage in their lives in a fulfilling and meaningful way. For example, while spending time with loved ones, these individuals might be stuck in a vortex of questioning if their loved ones are actually real. They might be questioning if they are actually present or if their perceptions of reality are wrong. Or, they might be trying to figure out what the meaning of these interactions are if there is no actual definitive meaning to life at all. These are just some examples of the way existential OCD might present in people’s lives.

This sort of anguished search for meaning is not to be confused with the sense of ruminative hopelessness and meaninglessness that is common among people with depression, nor is it the equivalent to the type of endless sense of worrying germane to Generalized Anxiety Disorder. What distinguishes existential obsessions from the aforementioned experiences is the presence of compulsions.

Common compulsions for individuals with existential OCD include mental checking/testing to gauge if one feels in touch with reality, ruminating in hopes that “this time” they will find the answers, and excessive research and reading of philosophical and scientifics texts.   Conversely, some may engage in avoidance of anything related to this topic, such as movies about simulations and videos about the universe, space, or the meaning of life. Individuals with existential OCD commonly also seek reassurance from others by asking them for their answers to their obsessive questions or asking them how they perceive reality...

Unfortunately, as is common for many people with OCD, many individuals may end up in traditional talk therapy before they land in the right treatment...Even purely cognitive approaches, like the use of thought challenging and cognitive reframing, reinforce the idea that the individual in treatment sincerely needs to pay these thoughts any mind at all...


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## Daniel (Oct 18, 2021)

"When I was first told about OCD, I was told that these thoughts are called intrusives. But I actually heard the word invasives for some reason. And that is what it's like for me. It's like there's an invasive weed that just spreads out of control. You know, it starts out with one little thought and then slowly that becomes the only thought that you're able to have, the thought that you're constantly either forced to have or trying desperately to distract yourself from."

~ John Green


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## Daniel (Dec 3, 2021)

Neuroticism - Wikipedia
					







					en.wikipedia.org
				




According to terror management theory (TMT) neuroticism is primarily caused by insufficient anxiety buffers against unconscious death anxiety.[32] These buffers consist of:


Cultural worldviews that impart life with a sense of enduring meaning, such as social continuity beyond one's death, future legacy and afterlife beliefs, and


A sense of personal value, or the self-esteem in the cultural worldview context, an enduring sense of meaning.

While TMT agrees with standard evolutionary psychology accounts that the roots of neuroticism in _Homo sapiens_ or its ancestors are likely in adaptive sensitivities to negative outcomes, it posits that once _Homo sapiens_ achieved a higher level of self-awareness, neuroticism increased enormously, becoming largely a spandrel, a non-adaptive byproduct of our adaptive intelligence...


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## Daniel (Dec 3, 2021)

“While caution is a useful instinct, we lose many opportunities and much of the adventure of life if we fail to support the curious explorer within us.”

“If you want resurrection, you must have crucifixion. The hoarder—the one in us that wants to keep, to hold on—must be killed.”

~ Joseph Campbell


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## Daniel (Jan 3, 2022)

Preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy for death anxiety in Iranian clients diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder - PubMed
					


The authors investigated the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for the treatment of death anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with eight adult women in Iran. The ACT protocol was conducted in weekly solo sessions with each participant for 8 weeks (45 minutes...





					pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
				




The authors investigated the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for the treatment of death anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with eight adult women in Iran. The ACT protocol was conducted in weekly solo sessions with each participant for 8 weeks (45 minutes each). The results were analyzed by visual analysis method and improvement percentage. ACT resulted in a 60%-80% decrease in death anxiety and a 51%-60% decrease in obsessive-compulsive symptoms, thereby indicating promise for ACT as a treatment for OCD and death anxiety.


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## Daniel (Jan 8, 2022)

“Because what if instead of a story told in consecutive order, life is a cacophony of moments we never leave? What if the most traumatic or the most beautiful experiences we have trap us in a kind of feedback loop, where at least some part of our minds remains obsessed, even as our bodies move on?”

“Someone had told her once that mothers existed to blunt the existential loneliness of being a person. If that was true then her biggest maternal responsibility was simply companionship. You bring a child into this fractious, chaotic world out of the heat of your womb, and then spend the next ten years walking beside them while they figure out how to be a person.”

“You need hope to form a thought. It takes--I don't know--optimism to speak, to engage in conversation. Because really, what's the point of all this communicating? What difference does it really make what we say to each other? Or what we do, for that matter?”

"And James was a believer in mystery. Not like his mum, who never met a phantasmagorical ideology she didn’t embrace instantly and completely, but in the manner of Albert Einstein, who once said, “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”

― Noah Hawley, _Before the Fall_


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## Daniel (Apr 6, 2022)

Existential Concerns in OCD with Aggressive and Sexual Obsessions

Previous research has highlighted the potential role of existential concerns (ECs) in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). However, empirical research has thus far only demonstrated the role of one existential issue in this disorder: namely, death anxiety.

The present study explored the relationships between OCD symptoms and five ECs: Death anxiety, meaninglessness, isolation, identity, and guilt. In particular, the associations between these concerns and sexual and aggressive obsessions were examined...

As hypothesised, death anxiety was significantly associated with aggressive obsessions, but not with sexual obsessions.


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## Daniel (May 27, 2022)

On a lighter note:


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## Daniel (May 27, 2022)

Depersonalization and Psychoanalysis
					


A dialogue with one’s own unconscious.





					www.psychologytoday.com
				




"The deeper the understanding and acceptance of the inner life, the less the intensity of depersonalization."

~ Elena Bezzubova


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## Daniel (Jun 2, 2022)

https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2343-
		


Existential rage is an untenable, despairing, and acute flooding of one's inner defenses in response to feeling a lack of ontological status, meaninglessness to life, or lack of agency, signifying intense upset and displeasure with these or related existential concerns in one's life.









						Existential Guilt and the Fear of Death
					







					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
				




Angst is often thought to refer merely to fear or anxiety. Interestingly “Angst” comes from the German root “angust” which is also the term for anger. This implies that anxiety and anger both compose the duality of emotions related to death.



			https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309174609_Existential_Perspectives_on_Anger
		


We may even feel guilty of having found ourselves in a position where our own values or safety are under threat.  What did we do that another would need to threaten or attack us? Avoidant behaviour will seem a safer bet.


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## Daniel (Jun 12, 2022)




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## Daniel (Jul 20, 2022)

Existential crisis - Wikipedia
					







					en.wikipedia.org
				




"It has been argued that for many great artists, their keener vision of the existential dilemma of the human condition was the cause of their creative efforts. These efforts in turn may have served them as a form of therapy."


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## Daniel (Jul 25, 2022)

“We might say that both the artist and the neurotic bite off more than they can chew, but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an external, active work project.”

"As long as man is an ambiguous creature he can never banish anxiety; what he can do instead is to use anxiety as an eternal spring for growth into new dimensions of thought and trust. Faith poses a new life task, the adventure in openness to a multi-dimensional reality.”

“The most that any one of us can seem to do is to fashion something--an object or ourselves--and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force.”

“Modern man tries to replace vital awe and wonder with a “How to do it” manual.”

“If there is tragic limitation in life there is also possibility. What we call maturity is the ability to see the two in some kind of balance into which we can fit creatively.”

“Beyond a given point man is not helped by more “knowing,” but only by living and doing in a partly self-forgetful way. As Goethe put it, we must plunge into experience and then reflect on the meaning of it. All reflection and no plunging drives us mad; all plunging and no reflection, and we are brutes.”

“When people do not have self-esteem they cannot act, they break down.”

― Ernest Becker, _The Denial of Death _(1973)


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## Daniel (Jul 27, 2022)

Existential OCD • California OCD And Anxiety Treatment Center
					


Existential OCD is a subtype of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that deals with abstract, philosophical, or otherwise intangible issues. Click to read more.





					calocd.com
				




ACT helps OCD sufferers build their ability to recognize the existential thoughts and obsessions as being optional thought experiments that do not have to overtake their life. The obsessions do they have to be answered immediately, if ever. ACT calls this Defusion, meaning not-fusing with the thought as if the outcome of the thought and the person’s very existence were one and the same.  This doesn’t mean ignoring them, or suppressing them, but acknowledging them as part of the present moment’s thought that will eventually be replaced by another thought.


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## Daniel (Aug 18, 2022)

Letting Go, Creating Meaning: The Role of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Helping People Confront Existential Concerns and Lead a Vital Life
					


We all must confront existential crises such as sickness, death of loved ones, loss of job, mistreatment from others, and relationship breakdown. These crises can shatter our sense of meaning. How can we face that moment with honesty and courage, embrace the...





					link.springer.com
				




We all must confront existential crises such as sickness, death of loved ones, loss of job, mistreatment from others, and relationship breakdown. These crises can shatter our sense of meaning. How can we face that moment with honesty and courage, embrace the distress, and create new meaning?

This chapter provides a theory of how language and self-awareness can lead us into existential crisis and loss of meaning. It then provides an evidence-based account of how the DNA-V model of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can help people to answer “Yes” to Camus’ most important philosophical question, “Is life worth living?”.

ACT can help people recreate coherence after a coherence-shattering event, overcome alienation from the body, overcome inertia, overcome a sense of self that is self-destroying or feels “empty,” and bridge the gulf between self and others and create genuine connection.

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"Once you realize that change and control are incompatible, you are set free."

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*DNA-v: A Simple 6-Step Process to Positive Change*

*The Broaden and Build Process* – Learn to create, think, play, and explore in a way that builds value and joy


*Mindfulness and Attention Process* – Pause and respond to feelings, rather than reacting impulsively


*The Cognitive Process* – Disengage from negative self-talk


*The Values-Based Process* – Clarify your values to create a meaningful life


*The Self-View Process *– Let go of your ego and see your potential rather than your limitations


*The Social-View Process* – Build genuine connections, manage difficult people, and forge strong social relationships


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## Daniel (Aug 24, 2022)

The Sun Magazine | This Mortal Coil | By Deborah Golden Alecson | Issue 544
					


I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that almost everybody on earth is currently more aware than usual that they’re going to die. .





					www.thesunmagazine.org
				



April 2021

...Recent studies have shown that genuine humility — not just self-deprecation — appears to buffer death anxiety as much as self-esteem...

"A humble person is first and foremost capable of tolerating an honest look at the self and nondefensively accepting weaknesses alongside strengths. This does not represent a sense of inferiority or self-denigration, but rather a lack of self-aggrandizing biases. The propensity for seeing the self in true perspective is typically accompanied by an awareness of the self’s smallness in the grand scheme of things."   ~ Pelin Kesebir

She goes on to say that humble people are more sensitive. They feel more connected. They can direct their attention to something beyond themselves.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become enthused about viewing myself as radically inconsequential. After all, I am a respiring piece of carbon-based meat, born in a time and place not of my choosing, here for an infinitesimal amount of time before I will be summarily obliterated and my atoms redistributed. I find that self-image ironically uplifting at this point in my life. I can be proud of becoming a psychologist and writing some books, but I’m no less enthusiastic about getting a lungful of fresh air on a beautiful day or taking the dog for a lap around the block.

I think humility is going to play a big role in psychology moving forward, as will gratitude. Everyone who slept in a bed last night and had breakfast this morning has something to be grateful for. Philosophers and theologians have long emphasized the value of gratitude, and this is now buttressed by research. When we ask people to think about a time in their life when they have felt grateful, it diminishes unconscious thoughts of death. There’s a lot more work that needs to be done in this domain, but I find it to be one of the most uplifting directions of our research. Be humble. Be grateful. It’s good for you. It’s good for the world.

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						The Quiet Ego Scale: Measuring the Compassionate Self-Identity - Journal of Happiness Studies
					


The quiet ego refers to a self-identity that transcends egoism and identifies with a less defensive, balanced stance toward the self and others. Study 1 establishes and confirms the 14-item Quiet Ego Scale (QES) as a higher-order latent factor (capturing the theoretical intersection of four...





					link.springer.com


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## Daniel (Aug 24, 2022)

Regarding existential anxiety, a related concept is "self-impermanence anxiety," a term by biologist Lonnie W. Aarssen.



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## Daniel (Aug 24, 2022)

Rethinking Madness
					


As the research continues to accumulate, we find that the mainstream understanding of schizophrenia and the other related psychotic disorders has lost virtually all credibility. We've learned that full recovery is not only possible, but may actually be the most common outcome given the right...




					www.google.com


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## Daniel (Aug 24, 2022)

Regarding Kirk Schneider (mentioned above with his theory of constriction vs. expansion), two of his books:

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Why do so many of us develop extremist psychological patterns, from withdrawal to aggression, friendship to enmity? Why do people vicariously live out their extremes through the actions of others? What can we do to transform these extremes in order to live vital and creative lives?

Drawing on the vast literature of existential psychology, Dr. Schneider develops what he calls the *paradox principle*, based on the assumptions that human experience spans a continuum from constriction to expansion. The former is characterized by the capacity to yield and focus, the latter by the capacity to assert and incorporate. People become dysfunctional, polarized, or excessive, says Schneider, when they fear either of these capacities. 

After applying his model to a variety of dysfunctional syndromes, Schneider goes on to depict its relevance for psychological health. He ties his model directly to subjects' personal histories and shows its pertinence to creativity, physical health, religious and social organizations, child rearing, and psychology.

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The aim of the book is to revive a sense of awe—the humility and wonder, thrill and anxiety, splendor and mystery of living—in self, society, and spirit. It is an attempt to revive the capacity to be moved. _Rediscovery of Awe_ promotes a new relation to life, and illustrates this relation over a broad range: from child-raising to education to the workplace, and from religion to politics and ethics. Set against our awe-deprived times, in which we tend to favor either a high tech, consumerist mentality or, contrastingly, a dogmatic, fundamentalist orientation, it presents a dynamic and rejuvenating alternative.


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## Daniel (Sep 1, 2022)

“If you feel like you don’t fit in this world, it is because you are here to help create a new one.”

~ Jocelyn Dahner


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## Daniel (Sep 2, 2022)

It’s Okay to Have No Purpose Beyond Being and Enjoying This Moment
					


It’s Okay to Have No Purpose Beyond Being and Enjoying This Moment by Bernadette Harris, Tiny Buddha August 15, 2022                 I was sitting on my yoga mat with my legs stretched out in front of me. I bent forward into a fold, puffing and clenching my jaw as I extended my fingertips toward...





					forum.psychlinks.ca
				




The most meaningful things that happen to us in life have no clear point.

You can’t cash in on the beauty of a sunset. There’s no “purpose” to stargazing. Listening to a song that transports you out of time and space doesn’t pay the bills.

Moments like these are born from joy and wonder, and they are what give our lives meaning. It’s time we gave ourselves permission to feel them.


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## Daniel (Sep 3, 2022)




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## Daniel (Sep 3, 2022)

May apply to life acceptance (an adaptive relationship to reality) as well:

"Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others." 

~ Christian D. Larson, posted by HBas


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## Daniel (Nov 5, 2022)

Existential OCD: An Obsession with Why - Impulse
					


OCD is a commonly misunderstood disease. In the eyes of the general population, it’s often perceived as an illness based on neurosis or personality quirks. Society sees OCD sufferers as particular people who keep their homes tidy, color code their soup cans, and wash their hands…a lot.





					impulsetherapy.com
				




Existential thinking, in itself, is not necessarily a sign of OCD; surely most anyone, at one time or another, has questioned the meaning of life or their purpose in the grand scheme of things. Drunken nights with friends and college philosophy classes are ripe with conversations on this subject matter.

But Existential OCD isn’t marked by curiosity or interest; it’s marked by anxiety and fear. It’s not enough for the sufferer to benignly ponder the inner workings of the universe, they must spend hours going over and over the same questions and engage in rituals in an attempt to assuage their angst-causing doubts. The inability of the sufferer to solve the riddles of the world and know with certainty the who, what, and why of life causes an endless cycle of worry.


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