Dispassion and OCD: Understanding Psychical Freedom vis-à-vis the Problem of Obsessive Intrusive Thoughts

Speaking from my own experience with OCD, I will describe in this paper the phenomenon of the obsessive intrusive thought as the OCD sufferer experiences it. I will also propose a recovery of the ancient monastic practice of “dispassion” as a manner of responding to intrusive thoughts without obsession, that is, as a way of relating to the thoughts less neurotically and with greater psychical freedom. It is precisely this relationship between thoughts and passions that Rowan Williams so helpfully describes in various places in his body of writings, influenced as he is by the ancient Christian monastic tradition. I will turn, therefore, to Williams and to one of his beloved ancient monks, Maximus the Confessor, to try to untangle the complex relationship between thoughts and passions which is operative within OCD and to present dispassion as a form of psycho-spiritual healing for the OCD sufferer.