Tarek Kareem Harris – S3E4 Unwanted Thoughts – Cure For Ocd, Waswas & Anxiety Using Combined Islam & Medicine

			It's mental health with me, Dr. tk Harris, welcome.
		

			When approaching any issue a bit, like I said in the last video, think of the issue as outside
yourself. It's something that you need to look at. But it is not you. It is something that is
bothering you. And so you're going to pay some attention. Now, when we deal with obsessions,
anxieties, and worse worse, from the point of view of the intellect, this is a very steady and
rational process. And again, there's a lot of letter R's involved, read, record, research, and
reaching out. So let's go through each of these in turn, reading is extremely useful because you are
finding out the truth of the disorder. If you were to read about the disorder, you'll find that
		

			roughly three in every 100 people suffer from it, it's very common. And you'll also find that as
opposed to even 20 or 30 years ago, most cases are very easily treated. Because for many hundreds of
years, it was almost beyond medicine, but such as the way Alhamdulillah that with research and with
treatment, we can get on and we're curing most people. So when we look at the thoughts that underpin
any obsessions, or worse, worse, we can see these things going on. Some people feel that they're
unforgivable. Some people feel that Allah does not love them, or that is abandon them. Some people
obsessed that they're not reading the Quran properly, or they're not reading it enough, or that
		

			their mistakes that they're making when reading it will make them punishable and unworthy.
		

			Some people have shameful thoughts, and they believe that those thoughts are actually theirs, and
that they somehow are evil people for having these thoughts. Others feel that when they pray or
offer do are that it isn't accepted, because they haven't cleaned themselves properly, or haven't
done exactly the method that they were supposed to. And many feel that they're not clean, because
they're very particular about their will do, or their goosal. And they feel that they haven't quite
clean themselves, or that they're contaminated again afterwards. As you can see, there's so many
opportunities for a person who's of good conscience, to feel that they're caught out. And it's not
		

			surprising that so many people have these doubts and fears, because we all have them to a certain
extent. But when they get out of control, they can consume the most righteous and the most pious
among us. So this is the OCD and restless anxiety cycle,
		

			you have unwanted thoughts, they become a little bit unbearable, and so you start feeling stressed.
And so you adopt habits or thoughts to make these things go away. You might be repeating your will
do. You might be reading the Quran obsessively repeating each ayah, making sure you pronounce it
right. And then the moment you do you think you haven't done it right, six or seven times or a fixed
number of times, just to make sure you've got it right. It's quite cruel. It's a bit like an
addiction, you get a temporary relief. So then you're back to square one, the unwanted thoughts
return, the stress returns, and you're back in the habits. And you can see how this reinforces
		

			itself. So how do we move forward from this? Well, the intellect offers us as we remember the
ability to examine the evidence and the truth. So this is where the third art comes in, is where we
record. What I mean is we start a diary, we start looking at the thoughts. And we start wondering,
what do I think? When do I think it? How do I respond? And how does my response help?
		

			Keeping a very simple diary of when these things happen is the very example of when you step outside
yourself and say, Okay, this is what's going on. This is what I think when these things happen. And
this is what I do when I respond. Simply recording it gives you a sense of power over it. The next
stage then, is to research it to test the evidence. You might for example, discover that after you
do do you usually want to repeat your with you within three minutes. So you could expose yourself to
a situation where you prolong that time. If you repeat normally within three minutes, you could
conduct a simple experiment where you say okay, what if I perform will do and I go without repeating
		

			for five minutes? How will I feel when you do that, you'll find usually that you feel okay. Then you
might stretch it out to seven minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. And the more you do that, the more
evidence you gain that you're not feeling so bad. So you have started to interfere with this cycle
and you've broken out of it. When you've broken out of it. Your brain naturally starts to put in the
proper evidence.
		

			Actually, I'm probably doing my work right, I just get very anxious. And actually, if I just hold on
to my anxiety, it goes away. And I don't need to repeat my work. And this is the basis of what's
called eirp. exposure and response prevention. It's usually done with the help of a psychologist,
but there are people who can do it themselves. There is much more detail in my books, and there will
be a lot more detail in the app, which will be interactive, and talk people through their worst
worst or their anxieties with a very personalized approach, inshallah, look out for it when it does
come. Finally, the last part of the intellectual response is to reach out, and by reaching out means
		

			to consider if somebody can help you. Now, there's no shame in that because if you're suffering and
this thing is taking over your life, you have to reach out medicines do help. Most medicines for OCD
are not addictive. And if you can get through the minus side effects for most people, then they can
be extremely effective in reducing that noise that we talked about in the last video. Medicine such
as SSRIs can be extremely useful and can virtually make the disorder disappear in many people.
		

			The final part of this three parter is how to deal with OCD and waswas using the true self or the
heart. And that's when things become really exciting and really powerful. I look forward to talking
to you about it in the next video. It's worthwhile reminding you that my whole mission is to try to
make this useful information available to everyone without cost directly to them. To that end on
writing books, and I'm creating an app and I'm trying to promote this channel. Please do whatever
you can to spread the word about it, donate by the books, spread the word, subscribe to the channel,
and inshallah we will reach our target of a million followers. And at that point, I can start
		

			producing stuff without any cost to you.
		

			I look forward to speaking to you in the next video in sha Allah wa Salaam