I use Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or I-CBT to treat people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I also use I-CBT to help adult survivors of childhood trauma who often suffer from obsessive thinking as well.
If this feels like what you’re going through, I am here to help. Below are a list of common questions people ask me about I-CBT
I-CBT is a treatment for Obsessive Compulsive disorder which is taking the OCD treatment world by storm. For many years, ERP or Exposure Response Prevention Therapy was considered the gold standard in OCD treatment. Recently, I-CBT is being considered a gold standard treatment for OCD as well.
I-CBT or Inference-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps OCD sufferers by educating them about how the brain interprets reality and showing them how obsessional thoughts occur in a dissociative state that is not based in reality.
You know that fuzzy feeling that you get when you’re stuck in your head in a loop of worry? that’s actually a form of dissociation!
Once the OCD sufferer learns to distinguish between perceiving reality and obsessional dissociation, they learn how to free themselves from OCD thinking!
Exposure Response Prevention Therapy or ERP is a treatment for OCD which focuses on tolerating the anxiety that comes from obsessional thoughts. This is contrast to I-CBT treatment which focuses on learning to identify when you are in an obsessional state and teaching you how to snap out of it! Instead of targeting the anxiety like ERP, I-CBT attacks the thoughts which are the source of the anxiety!
Both I-CBT and ERP have their place in treating OCD. However, many clinicians are finding that once they teach their clients the I-CBT principles, ERP or exposure therapy is no longer necessary!
Many OCD sufferers no longer need to go through extensive ERP treatment once they have been taught I-CBT skills. Even if there is a need for ERP it is a often much less lengthy and extensive treatment due to the benefit previously received from I-CBT.
I have found that I-CBT is incredibly effective and helpful for most anxiety sufferers and obsessive thinkers even those without a clinical diagnosis of OCD!
Most anxiety sufferers tend to also be obsessive thinkers to some degree.
Yes! In my experience most childhood trauma survivors are somewhat dissociative. This dissociation likely develops because of attachment wounding in childhood which occurs when there is a lack of connection between parent and child. As a result the child develops a habit of overthinking and getting lost in their own head.
As a result I have found I-CBT to be a essential component of my trauma therapy practice for adults with childhood trauma.
When childhood trauma survivors learn how to identify dissociative states and learn how to bring themselves back into a state of presence. It is tremendously helpful for them!
I completed an I-CBT training from the OCD Lived Experienced Collective in 2022.
If after reading all of this you’re interested in exploring I-CBT with me, please schedule a free consultation call with me so we can talk over your specific situation and see if working together makes sense for us both.
