For some less fortunate individuals, their chronic allergies, pain syndromes, and other medical problems cause sustained interruptions to selective attention. Stuffy noses, irritated eyes, rashes, coughing and the like represent the normal sensory annoyances that can come to preoccupy individuals for short periods of time. Most people at some point in their lives have experienced transient problems with this sort of sensory hyper-awareness. Compulsions in response to sensorimotor obsessions are usually limited to repeated attempts to use distraction to interrupt the fixation on sensory phenomena. By definition sufferers report significant levels of distress, particularly as a result of impairments in concentration at work, when socializing, or when attempting to fall asleep. Sensorimotor obsessions are infrequently accompanied by perfectionistic attitudes or beliefs however, they do occasionally play a role, as in the case of a perfectionistic patient who was constantly preoccupied by smudges on his glasses and by other imperfections in his sensory environment. Jonathan Grayson has termed “obsessing about obsessing” (Grayson, 2004). Fears center mainly on the concern that automatic bodily processes or physical sensations will fail to return to their previous unconscious state, thus forever “driving the sufferer crazy.” Such fears are frequently accompanied by the broader concern that the obsession itself will be unending, a concern that Dr. Sensorimotor obsessions as defined here rarely involve elaborated fears of harm to oneself or others. movement of the mouth and/or tongue during speech.Sensorimotor obsessions often involve one or more of the following:
Examples of Common Sensorimotor Obsessions This anxiety perpetuates the focus on swallowing, leaving them preoccupied and frustrated by their unsuccessful attempts to shift attention elsewhere.
Attempts to distract themselves fail, leading to higher levels of anxiety. In a typical scenario, individuals begin to selectively attend to their swallowing, for example, and become anxious that they will become unable to stop thinking about their swallowing. Any bodily process or sensation to which one selectively attends can form the foundation of this sensory or sensorimotor obsession. Whether technically sensory or sensorimotor in nature, such obsessions share one common precursor: selective attention. Sensorimotor obsessions as defined here involve either a focus on automatic bodily processes or discrete physical sensations. Colloquially termed “obsessive swallowing,” “obsessive blinking,” or “conscious breathing,” these problems fall within a class of complaints that may be aptly described as “sensorimotor obsessions”. One such neglected subgroup of sufferers report distressing preoccupations with bodily processes or bodily sensations. Their OCD is somehow different: it simply does not conform to these popular descriptions. Yet for some individuals suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, there is little hope of “finding themselves” in the pages of this popular literature. Likewise, descriptions of intrusive sexual or violent imagery urges to touch, tap, or even-up objects and concerns about good and bad, right and wrong, populate the pages of scientific and self-help books and articles on OCD. The literature on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) routinely includes detailed accounts of washing, checking, repeating, and undoing behaviors associated with fears of harm to oneself or others. Keuler, Ph.D., The Behavior Therapy Center of Greater Washington
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