OCD and the Devil Card

Ever come face-to-face with this guy?


I was at my therapist’s recently, and talked with her about something that had been troubling me since I was in junior high school. A recurring, disturbing thought had popped up in my mind from time to time over the last 20 years or so, and I’d never known how to talk to someone about it without sounding crazy.

So my shrink and I talked about this scary, ugly thought, and she said: “It’s an obsessive thought. It’s not a real thought, and it’s nothing to be scared of. Your mind just gets stuck in a crazy loop sometimes. When that happens, just tell yourself: Oh, there’s that obsessive thought again. It isn’t a real thought, and I don’t need to worry about it.”

This was massively reassuring to me. I’ve always had a pretty high opinion of my own sanity, but this thought had been nagging at me for years. And now? It’s not that it’s gone; it’s just that its power and venom have been extracted because I know that it’s not real. It’s a conditioned response, a biochemical reaction in my brain that gets reinforced every time I give it credence. And the best part is, I can rewire my brain so it doesn’t bother me very much at all.

I wanted to write about this here for several reasons. Some of you out there may also have a thought, a secret, or a troubling idea that you’ve been carrying with you for years or decades. Since this is a taboo topic in our culture, I wanted to emphasize how common it is, and how easy it is to get at least some relief from it.

In cognitive-behavioral therapy, it’s well-accepted that shining a light on a scary thought takes away the bulk of its power. This makes me think about the Devil Card in the tarot (the Rider-Waite-Smith version is shown at the top of this post). It’s a card about the Jungian concept of the Shadow: the darkness inside each of us that we expend so much energy not looking at. Talking about this Shadow is the equivalent of shining a flashlight in the Devil’s eyes. He’ll make a scared Scooby Doo noise and will drop the chains he’s holding you with.

I always point out to my tarot clients that, if you look closely at the card, the Adam-and-Eve nekkid people are chained up--but those chains are loose. They could easily lift them off and walk away. What a great therapy metaphor! And interestingly, the Devil is often associated with addiction. That fits right in: we can be addicted to any number of substances and behaviors, including our own thought patterns.

I just read a great book about OCD, called Brain Lock. My shrink says it’s her favorite on the topic, and it’s certainly both fascinating and practical. If obsessive thoughts or compulsive behavior impact you or someone you care about, I highly recommend it.