ICBT (or I-CBT) stands for Inference-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. ICBT sees obsessions as based on false ‘inferences’ or ‘inferential doubt.’ Inferences are conclusions we come to based on a set of information. In normal, everyday doubt, we might doubt whether we left the stove on- so we check the stove, see that the knobs are turned to ‘off,’ and go on about our day. When you have OCD, your brain might see that the knobs are turned off, but when you walk away, OCD gets in your head with something like, ‘but what if it wasn’t really off? What if one of the knobs was actually a little but ON?’ And it doesn’t stop there- it adds to the mix, ‘if the stove is on, something might catch on fire and my house could burn down and destroy everything and everyone I care about and I might get taken to jail for being negligent and then my life will just be OVER.’  Anxiety skyrockets and you HAVE to go check the stove again, even though you know you just confirmed it is off.

OCD takes everything you know to be true and just ignores the shit out of it, insisting that there might be something very wrong, and your action is needed now. It sucks you into this bubble of imagined disaster that feels SO real and possible, it demands your immediate attention, and you have to do compulsions  (washing your hands again even though you just washed them; going back home to make sure the house isn’t on fire, and everything is unplugged; etc) to make the anxiety go away.

The problem is, that relief doesn’t last. Something else happens to trigger those obsessive doubts and the whole cycle starts over again.

ICBT helps you identify this predictable process and develop the ability to notice when the ‘what if’s’ are gearing up again. When you see the bridge forming between what reality & your senses tell you (example: yes, my hands and eyes have confirmed the stove is turned off) and OCD’s obsessive ‘but what if???’ – you become able to choose whether to get sucked into the what-if bubble that drives the urge to do compulsions.