In the previous article I explained the relationship between obsessions and insecurities, and in my clinical work I have discovered another reason for obsessions: not accepting the contradictory nature of one’s thoughts and feelings. OCD patients often say that I have two thoughts inside me, one thought that wants this and another thought that wants that, both thoughts are mine, but the two thoughts contradict each other. For example, on the one hand I know that dirty things are not terrible, the world is originally dirty; but on the other hand, when I encounter the so-called dirty things, if I do not repeatedly wash dozens of times or hours, I am always very uncomfortable in my heart. But if I wash it, I will be very self-conscious, feeling that I can’t really work and live normally if I develop like this, and I am sorry for those loved ones who love me! Seeing the patient in such pain, I can’t help but think of the idiom allusion to “self-contradiction”: There was a man in the state of Chu who sold spears and shields. He first boasted of his shield, saying, “My shield is so strong that nothing can penetrate it!” Then he boasted of his spear, saying, “My spear is so sharp that nothing can fail to penetrate it!” Some asked him, “What would happen if you used your spear to pierce your shield?” The Chu’s mouth was open and he couldn’t answer. In fact, the thoughts of OCD patients are precisely some such contradictions. However, the patient is unwilling to face such contradictions, wanting to have both the sharpness of the spear – invulnerable – and the strength of the shield – unbreakable. Look at these thoughts and behaviors of the patient, wanting to be afraid and not wanting to be afraid, wanting to wash and not wanting to wash, wanting to check and not wanting to check, which group is not a contradiction! To put it bluntly, the main reason why OCD sufferers contradict themselves is that they cannot accept their own limitations and are afraid to take responsibility for their own defects. Our own limitations as human beings are that in real life, we can’t even achieve the best of both worlds, let alone the best of all worlds. In my opinion, accepting or not accepting contradictions and limitations is crucial to the formation of compulsion. For example, there are many things we do repeatedly in life, such as falling in love with someone and thinking about them over and over again, obsessing over an activity and practicing it over and over again, and loving a job and figuring it out over and over again. Because we accept such a state, and call them “love”, “hobby”, “career” and greatly appreciate, and therefore also special acceptance, not to mention that it is not bothered by It is not forced. For our recurring worries, we lose the grace to tolerate them and want to get rid of them. The more we try to get rid of our worries, the more we fail to do so, and the more compulsive the symptoms become. In fact, if we acknowledge our own limitations and admit that imperfection and insecurity are our inevitable destiny, or what people often call “giving in,” our worries will be significantly reduced, and external compulsions such as repeated hand washing will be significantly reduced. In clinical practice, I sometimes use the phenomena of “hot love” and “lost love” to illustrate to patients the emotional impact of acceptance and how to deal with compulsions. When we fall in love with someone, we often miss him or her so much that our hearts and eyes are filled with each other, and we are happy to do so. The first thing you need to do is to take a look at your face, and you will never forget it. I dreamed of seeing each other again one day by chance, and from then on I started to think about it alone. When I think of you, you are in the sky, when I think of you, you are in front of me, when I think of you, you are in my heart”; or as Cai Qin sang in “Your Eyes”, “Like a fine rain falling on my heart, that feeling is so mysterious. I can’t help but look up at you, and you don’t show any signs of it. Although you don’t say a word, it’s hard to forget. That’s your eyes, bright and beautiful. Ah! There is a world of love, I am full of joy!” And when we fall out of love, the same person, we often want to forget each other immediately, but can not forget, and therefore distressed. Just like the legendary Zhuo Wenjun, after she knew that Sima Xiangru’s heart had changed, she wrote a letter back with numbers in grief and anger: “After a farewell, two places to miss each other, said it was three or four months, but who knew it was five or six years. The seven-stringed lute is unplayable, the eight-line book is untransmittable, and the nine-link ring is broken from it. The ten-mile long pavilion is longing to be pierced. A hundred grievances, a thousand thoughts, a thousand helplessness to complain about the boy. A thousand words can’t be said, but a hundred boredoms are on the fence. The ninth day of the lunar month, the moon is full, but the people are not. The half of July, burning incense and candles to ask the heavens, June, everyone shaking the fan I feel cold, May durian blossoms like fire in favor of a burst of cold rain watered flowers end, April loquat yellow, I want to look at the mirror of my mind; suddenly hurried, March peach blossoms with the flow of water; floating zero, February kite line is broken. Well! I hope that in the next life you will be a woman and I will be a man.” These lyrics and poems vividly portray our state of mind in love and lost love. We can say that the longing in love is a repeated behavior, because it is accepted we do not feel distressed; after the loss of love nostalgia is also a repeated behavior, because it is not accepted we feel distressed. As to whether the duration of distress is long or short, it depends mainly on how the person who has fallen out of love sees it after the painful experience. If he thinks that the loss of love is common, although it is painful, he can accept its existence. Accepted, it is not distressed and forced. If it is never accepted, it will haunt the other party and toss both families into disarray (I have seen such a lost love, and more than one, and I really sympathize!) . If the compulsive patient treated the insecurities, contradictions and limitations that affect the compulsions with the same acceptance as he or she treats a lover (whether hot or lost), I believe that his or her compulsions would be significantly reduced, and perhaps even disappear altogether. In my clinical experience, such examples are common.