ABSTRACT
The term intrusive refers to three different aspects of obsessive thoughts. First, that they can appear in the patient’s mind totally out of context and unrelated to his mental state. Second, obsessions are intrusive in that they are experienced by patients as being in contrast with their values. Third, obsessions can be intrusive because they are in conflict with the person’s view of reality. One suggestive hypothesis is that obsessive disorder can be reduced to the intrusion of thoughts or images. Obsessive rumination can take the form of reasoned argument or be conducted exclusively in the imagination. Most obsessive patients are, at least in certain moments, critical with respect to their own obsessive preoccupations and the attempted solutions that they adopt. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterised by negative emotions and the negative emotions derive from a recognition of a divergence between perceived state and desired state.
