How to Stop OCD Excessive Hand Washing

I’m in my private hospital room today thinking how could I help someone stop OCD excessive handwashing. Here are my suggestions which are far cheaper and far easier than traditional therapy.

OCD is an imagination problem and not a behavioral problem. We can stop our OCD playing tricks on us by overpowering its contamination images with much stronger visualizations as we wash our hands. 

Creating the Clean Getaway

This part of this course is purely experimental. It shouldn’t cause you any harm yet help to make coping with your OCD much easier. At least easier than traditional ERP.

We’ll follow the same principles of the Look, Lock, Label & Leave System but target other types of OCD.

Here’s how I would approach Contamination OCD with Hand Washing Compulsions if I had it.

Remember we only need the 4L’s system to help us through the first 15 minutes. After that, the worst phase of our anxiety will be over.

This does not mean we have to wash our hands for a minimum of 15 minutes. Rather we need the Look, Lock, Label and Leave System to subdue our OCD anxiety for that long.

After that initial period our anxiety will decrease and so will the images we used to reduce our hand washing.

We Need Clean Hands

As with our OCD Checking, we do not want to stop checking altogether.  We still need to check to be on the safe side. If we stopped checking altogether then that would be a type of OCD in reverse, if that makes sense.

So we need to wash our hands when we cook food, go to the toilet, etc…

We want them clean but not so much we rub our skin raw.

This is similar to our checking.  Check to be safe. With our hands, we want them clean enough to be hygienic.

So hopefully with a little practice, we’ll be able to return your hand washing to a normal baseline.

The next time we need to wash our hands we just repeat the process.

The 4L’s Basic Approach to OCD Hand Washing

Here are the steps that I would take to overcome my OCD handwashing if I had it.

What’s important is that you alter this system if it doesn’t work for you.

You are your own person. With your own imagination. With your own solutions.

Here how I would do it:

1. We begin washing our hands with soap and water. Continue looking at your hands for the rest of the process.
2. Next, I would give my contamination a code image and my cleaning soapy hands a different code image. For example, the contamination could be given a code image of brown globules. Our soap water would neutralize the contamination. Their code image could be white globules.
3. We don’t just want to see this in our imagination. We need to involve our other senses. So maybe add a sizzling sound as the brown globules are being gobbled up by the white ones. We may also feel slight localized areas of heat as each contamination globule is being erased.
4. When we dry our hands we could finish off by seeing our hands as sparkly clean. We visualize them as shiny bright diamonds.

The purpose of this exercise is to reduce the time we take to wash our hands towards a normal baseline. A couple minutes rather than an hour of repetitive hand washing that includes a bottle of bleach.

You’ll still wash your hands on a regular basis but not so it controls you.

Remember to use your imagination. Use coded images that suit you. Involve as many of your senses as possible.

What to Do After you’ve Finished Washing

We’ve only finished half the job now. What do we do after we’ve washed our hands and they begin to feel contaminated again?

We use the Look, Lock, Label & Leave System again.

When that contamination feel comes back you won’t need to wash again (although it may take a while with practice), because The 4L’s system will override the OCD.

Here’s what to do:

1. Imagine two front-loading trucks appearing from your elbows. One on each arm collecting the contamination into piles on top of your hands, and toppling most of the sides. (Use any code image for the contamination.)
2. Then imagine a Pac-man from each hand chewing up the left-over imaginary contamination. See them running over your arms, hear the arcade sound as each pile of contamination is being gobbled. Hear the background music.
3. Then imagine a laser running over both hands making rendering them completely sterile. Feel the heat as it runs over. Hear small sparking sounds as the leftover contamination in completely annihilated.
4. Then we could feel, see and smell as almost shiny new.

This is just one of literally thousands of different images you could use. Use this one if you like or alter it to suit your own needs.

Your imagination knows no limits.

IMPORTANT: This doesn’t mean we only wash our hands once a day. With practice, it just means not washing our hands for hours. It means we’ll just wash our hands when we need to and not feeling as if we have to.

You’re free to use this system as I have exactly laid out or altered it to satisfy your own needs.

For example, you may imagine your contamination as evil trolls and the soapy water as armies of knights spearing the dirt. As they are speared they instantly disappear into a cloud of smoke.

The point is that it doesn’t matter how ridiculous your code images are.

All that matters is that it gets the job done.

These images should make you feel clean quickly and reduce your hand washing to a few minutes.

The next time you feel the need to wash just repeat the dump truck/Pac-man steps. Or you can further evolve the system over time so it works better for you.

If you’re having trouble concentrating, hold your breath in for a few seconds as your visualizing your code images.

Not breathing forces you to pay attention to your hands.

This laser-like focus will shorten the system and the time it takes to wash our hands.

The truth is that any code images will work for you but it may take a while for you to find the right ones.

If you remember the arcade game Pacman then you’ll remember this character used to gobble up dots for points.

This could work just as well especially if you were a fan of the game.

The reason we use highly unusual images in this way is that we need to override our OCD thoughts and images.

Strange, vivid code images that are somewhat logical overpowers our feelings of contamination.

Each time you think you’ve contaminated your hands just see Pacman gobble up your germs and visualize the sparkly, shiny digits on your hands.

Again this is how I would approach OCD hand washing. Try it for a couple of days at least just to test it out.

If it works great and if not try something else.

Another thing we can do is add in the sense of smell. We could image a nice smell coming from our hands after we’ve washed and dried them.

A detergent smell could have a negative impact on us but the smell of your favorite aromatherapy oil would do just fine. Or any smell that is anchored to you in a positive way. (Although a detergent smell may be just right for you.)

Finally, if you’re still having trouble remember to suck in a breath and hold it in your tummy as this will create a laser-like focus.

I’ll be doing future posts on how alternate uses of the Look, Lock, Label & Leave System may help with other forms of OCD.