Treating obsessions through psychoanalysis with a psychologist in Paris 9

Obsession is a psychological symptom that can be treated using the method of free associations, in particular with a psychologist who practises psychoanalysis, in Paris 9 or elsewhere.

Obsessive thinking imposes itself on consciousness in a coercive and repetitive manner. It can become very difficult to bear, both for those who suffer from it and for those around them.

Often presented in the form of obsessive apprehensions or impulse phobias, nagging fears of committing a wrongdoing, obsessions regularly revolve around the idea of harming or hurting.

The anxiety that accompanies these obsessive thoughts can be more or less unbearable.
Whether they relate to the fear of something bad happening, to a fear of harming someone or of not

doing the right thing, obsessions are most often linked to a feeling of guilt, whether conscious or not.

Sometimes linked to trivial everyday acts, the “criminal” action that the obsessed person is afraid of seeing happen, of committing or of having committed, can seem absurd, both to himself and to those around him. This is also one of the reasons why the person who suffers from obsession can easily want to hide their obsessive thoughts, even if it means isolating themselves.

This concealment of the obsessive nature of thought contributes to the fact that obsessive neurosis still goes largely unnoticed, particularly in the medical field. Moreover, we can note that it was not until the 19th century that Freud discovered obsessive neurosis, even though its symptomatic manifestations have been widely represented since antiquity.

Shortly before the discovery of the inventor of psychoanalysis, it was as “Madness of doubt with delirium of touch” that Legrand Du Saulle isolated the symptoms of obsessional neurosis.

If this compulsive tendency to question is characteristic of obsessive thinking, let us also note that the symbolic content of this “delusion of touch” is regularly found in obsessions: that it is understood as a bodily fear of touching the other or even to be touched by him, both aggressively and sensually, both bodily and symbolically, it represents the defensive mechanism of the obsessive neurotic by which he isolates linked representations so that they can no longer touch each other, or have logical links .

Discovered by Sigmund Freud, psychic isolation is a psychic mechanism which allows the obsessive neurotic to defend himself from unbearable thoughts by isolating them, by breaking the links between these thoughts and others.

But due to the insistence of these repressed thoughts, which insist precisely on not being assumed, they repeat themselves tirelessly, through psychic isolation, in the form of obsessions .

It is therefore by freely associating the thoughts against which he defends himself that the obsessive neurotic can cure his obsessions.

Through psychoanalysis, the psychoanalyst treats the unbearable thoughts that he continues to isolate and thus stops wasting his energy in an exhausting fight, in his obsessions.

Failing to confront in his psychoanalysis the unbearable thoughts that he isolates psychically and which generate the obsessions, the obsessive neurotic can easily create false temporary solutions, in which he can firmly believe, to try to get rid of his obsessions.

To illustrate these false reasonings through which the obsessive neurotic pursues a sort of race forward, we can take the example of the rituals he puts in place to protect himself.

Let's start again from psychic isolation and the obsession it produces by isolating certain thoughts from the rest of the thoughts. Disconnected from the associative chain, this thought which goes in circles repeats itself, compulsively, until it can be articulated again.

But by continuing to maintain separate thoughts that have a logical connection, psychic isolation leads the neurotic to create false connections, or errors of reasoning, which are structured in an illusory way on a limited spatio-temporal perspective, or radically isolated in space and in time.

By then transforming contingency links into causal links, these false obsessive connections produce false reasoning that seems true when considered in isolation, in a restricted and disconnected space-time.

Sometimes, the illusory dimension of these obsessive false reasoning can be easily distinguished, notably by their absurd character: in certain rituals, for example, it is necessary to repeat a word 3 times while rubbing your hands or even count only even numbers to avoid a tragic event occurring.

Here, we can easily identify the notion of magical thinking that Freud had identified and we can also easily distinguish the false logical connection, that is, the error of reasoning.

But most of the time, these false obsessive theories go unnoticed, in the same way that obsessions are often confused with a simple mental occupation.

Indeed, we can see that obsession can easily be lumped together with “normal” investment. For example, a person may be obsessed with a mission or an objective, particularly at work, without realising that their investment is disproportionate and exclusive.

Obsessed by a task which unknowingly monopolises all his attention, the neurotic can minimise the obsessive dimension of his investment all the more because he can rationalise it as in the form of a responsibility or obligation. But concomitantly with the obsession which monopolises psychic energy, it is the other responsibilities which are abandoned as the morbid process becomes veiled.

From administrative responsibilities to household chores, from bodily care to psychological care, including parental and conjugal responsibilities, it is often the spouse or other family members who pay the price for the obsessed person's lack of interest in their other occupations.

If obsessions easily go unnoticed by being confused with socially valued occupations, the same is true of errors of reasoning and rituals. These false logical connections can even produce systems that give the illusion of being real theories.

Let us take here the errors in the medical and psychological treatment of obsessions to illustrate the weight of false obsessive logical connections in the treatment of obsessive neurosis itself: prescription of anxiolytic, CBT, meditation, relaxation or even sophrology, all of these techniques can be considered as obsessive systems which rely on errors of reasoning.

As we pointed out previously, psychic isolation generates perspectives restricted in space and time. Due to these limited perspectives, a momentary and localised therapeutic effect will be confused with real care, or with a lasting and generalised therapeutic effect.

For example, giving an anxiolytic or doing relaxation can produce a calming effect on the obsession but as what causes it has not been resolved - the unbearable thoughts from which the being defends itself psychically - the obsession will return to the after a while or if it will move to another object or even to the prescriptions themselves: taking anxiolytic or relaxation will become a new ritual, integrated into a new obsessive functioning...

When obsession is veiled under rational thought, when ritual is masked behind functional actions and when systems of erroneous thoughts are disseminated as real theories, we can understand that the problem of obsession generates numerous social symptoms, especially in scientific circles.

We have emphasised several times that the weight of these obsessive systems in the medical and psychological environment generates particularly harmful confusion to the extent that it literally disorients the care function.

Not treating the true cause of the symptomatic phenomena is tantamount to not truly treating them.

In Paris or elsewhere, treating obsessions therefore consists of treating what causes them, or treating, through psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, the unbearable thoughts that are at the origin. Thus, obsessions are treated using the method of free associations.

If you would like to know more about the treatment of obsessions through psychoanalysis or if you would like to meet a psychologist in Paris 75009 to treat your obsessions, do not hesitate to contact me directly at 0603159412.

Treating obsessions through psychoanalysis with a psychologist in Paris 9 Julien Faugeras, Psychologist to treat obsessions in Paris 9