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The Termination of Checking and the Role of Just Right Feelings: A Study of Obsessional Checkers Compared with Anxious and Non-clinical Controls

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2016

Paul M. Salkovskis ,
Josie Millar ,
James D. Gregory  and
Karina Wahl
Paul M. Salkovskis*
Affiliation:
University of Bath, UK
Josie Millar
Affiliation:
University of Bath, UK
James D. Gregory
Affiliation:
University of Bath, UK
Karina Wahl
Affiliation:
University of Basel, Switzerland
*
Correspondence to Paul Salkovskis, Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK. E-mail: pms33@bath.ac.uk
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Abstract

Background: Repeated checking in OCD can be understood from a cognitive perspective as the motivated need to achieve certainty about the outcome of a potentially risky action, leading to the application of Elevated Evidence Requirements (EER) and overuse of subjective criteria. Method: Twenty-four obsessional checkers, 22 anxious controls, and 26 non-clinical controls were interviewed about and rated recent episodes where they felt (a) they needed to check and (b) checked mainly out of habit (i.e. not obsessionally). Results: Both subjective and objective criteria were rated as significantly more important in obsessional checkers than in controls; obsessional checkers also used more criteria overall for the termination of the check, and rated more criteria as “extremely important” than the control groups. The termination of the check was rated as more effortful for obsessional checkers than for the comparison groups. Analysis of the interview data was consistent with the ratings. Feelings of “rightness” were associated with the termination of a check for obsessional checkers but not for controls. Conclusion: Results were consistent with the proposal that the use of “just right feelings” to terminate checking are related to EER.

Keywords

Obsessive compulsive disordercheckingelevated evidence requirementsstopping criteria
Type
Research Article
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , March 2017 , pp. 139 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2016 

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