The practice of mindfulness for obsessive-compulsive disorder

The application of mindfulness to the treatment of psychological disorders entails becoming aware of what is happening inside us, but also around us, and redirecting our attention in order not to be overwhelmed by the tyranny of the mind. Mindfulness refers to the capacity to pay attention to the present moment with awareness and without judging the experience that one is having (Kabat-Zinn, 1990), such as thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensations. From this definition alone, it is easy to intuit how the practice of mindfulness could be particularly useful in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Indeed, one particularly problematic aspect for the treatment of the disorder is the overestimation by people affected by OCD of the importance of their own state of mind. From a certain point of view, it could be affirmed that the main problem of this disorder is the difficulty of letting go of mental processes once they have appeared in one’s mind. These contents may be thoughts, but also images, which, once evoked, succeed in ‘hooking’ the patient and lead him to enact rituals, hidden or manifest. Developing mindful attitudes in the patient through the practice of mindfulness could potentially be a valid instrument for helping people with OCD manage their internal experiences (thoughts, sensations, mental images) and learn how to respond to them in a functional way, rather than reacting automatically. This chapter begins with a brief presentation of mindfulness and an illustration of the mindless attitude of the obsessive mind, followed by a discussion of how to adapt mindfulness practices to the treatment of OCD. The final section will report on the available studies of the application of mindfulness in OCD therapy.