Association splitting is a self-help technique for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).[1]
Technique
In this method, to provide competition to the existing negative associations typical of OCD (e.g. cancer = death), alternative neutral or positive associations are strengthened or newly established (e.g., cancer = zodiac sign). The strengthening of neutral or positive associations is aimed to weaken dysfunctional associations (fan-effect)[2] in order to attenuate compulsive urges (e.g., washing, checking).
The technique is based on semantic network models[3] as well as studies showing that mental associations in patients with OCD are restricted to the obsessive-compulsive meaning.[4] A systematic review found evidence for the efficacy of the technique.[5] The manual for the technique is available online in seven languages. A short instruction of the technique as well as a related method (attention splitting), which aims to attenuate the over-focusing of external stimuli, is part of a metacognitive self-help (myMCT),[6][7] which leads to a significant improvement of OCD symptoms according to a meta-analysis.
| This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. |