Imagery rescripting as an adjunct clinical intervention for obsessive compulsive disorder.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects many patients who do not fully respond to standard treatments like exposure and response prevention (ERP).
• Novel adjunct therapies are needed for treatment-resistant OCD.
• Imagery rescripting (ImRs) is an established technique for treating traumatic stress.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the efficacy of ImRs as an adjunctive treatment for OCD symptoms.
• To assess ImRs for patients with OCD who did not respond adequately to ERP.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 13 patients with OCD who had undergone baseline assessment and a control intervention.
• Treatment involved 1-6 sessions of ImRs, continuing until a 35% reduction in Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) scores was achieved.
• Patients were followed up at one and three months post-treatment.

Main Results:

• Twelve out of thirteen patients (92%) achieved a clinically significant improvement (≥35% reduction in Y-BOCS).
• Six patients required only one ImRs session, while the other six needed 2-5 sessions.
• Lower baseline Y-BOCS scores predicted improvement after a single session.

Conclusions:

• ImRs shows promise as an effective adjunct therapy for treatment-resistant OCD, particularly for symptoms linked to past aversive experiences.
• ImRs may be particularly beneficial for patients with mild-to-moderate residual symptoms after ERP.
• The findings suggest ImRs can lead to significant symptom reduction in a substantial portion of patients with refractory OCD.