The Frontier Psychiatrists

The Frontier Psychiatrists

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The Frontier Psychiatrists
The Frontier Psychiatrists
Reassurance is Poison, Sometimes.

Reassurance is Poison, Sometimes.

Missing OCD and Reassurance Seeking Compulsions lead to problems in therapy.

Owen Scott Muir, M.D, DFAACAP's avatar
Owen Scott Muir, M.D, DFAACAP
Sep 22, 2023
∙ Paid
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The Frontier Psychiatrists
The Frontier Psychiatrists
Reassurance is Poison, Sometimes.
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The Frontier Psychiatrists is a daily health-themed publication. A psychiatrist writes it. Please consider supporting this publication with a share or subscription.

One of the problems with selling reassurance, which is a lot of what half-baked therapy is, is that in addition to being ineffective, it worsens the problem. Reassurance-seeking can be a compulsion. I've heard a lot of online therapy ads. None of them seem to be targeting issues that, as a therapist, I address.

My Old Office. Photography—on the wall—by Angela Cappetta.

Therapy is a powerful intervention. It is a neuromodulation, using the most fundamental tools humans possess, the ability to re-synchronize someone elelse'srain by being curious about it. However, not all therapy seeking finds the therapy that would be the most useful.

Let me introduce you to my friend, grudgingly, the brain circuitry that drives a disorder that we unfortunately call obsessive-compulsive disorder. I say unfortunate because it doesn't do a…

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