Acceptance of being guilty in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder

Results of different studies support the notion that obsessive activity is aimed at preventing misdeeds in the symptomatic domain and that OC patients judge the possibility of being guilty as unacceptable. These findings lead to the hypothesis that increasing acceptability of being guilty, even in non-symptomatic domains, reduces OC symptoms. This paper reports the outcomes of 4 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder who were treated in a multiple-baseline across subjects design. The intervention was centred on acceptance of guilt in non-symptomatic domains. The dependent variable is the score recorded by the patients daily on a report that showed time occupied by obsessive activity and degree of interference with daily activities. Furthermore, each patient was administered the Y-BOCS, CORE-OM and QSC at the beginning and after twenty therapy sessions. Results confirmed that intervention centred on accepting guilt in non-symptomatic domains is able to produce a significant reduction of OC symptoms.