Pedophilic-OCD (P-OCD)

Throughout the years, I have worked with a number of people with debilitating anxiety who have reached out for treatment because I specialize in working with folx who have pedophilic disorder. I’ve found that it is often a way to navigate their very extreme anxiety—finding someone who can either endorse or disprove their worst fears.

But P-OCD is far more complicated, in that it has nothing to do with pedophilic interests and everything to do with how certain brains navigate uncomfortable and scary thoughts. Someone with P-OCD may experience extremely random and overwhelmingly distressing thoughts related to harming children. These thoughts have zero to do with the actual interest and EVERYTHING to do with fear of being “monstrous” or “a bad person.”

You see, research has continued to find that certain obsessive thoughts are related to social narratives and norms. What is one of the scariest things you could experience in our world? Well, the ability and desire to harm a child. This creates a perfect storm of anxiety, fear, and compulsive behaviors to keep from being “bad.”

Unfortunately, many well-intentioned therapists (who may have an understanding of treating more general OCD) seem to struggle with P-OCD, simply because they tend to approach this issue with the same misinformation and stigmatized beliefs that surround pedophilic disorder.

In order to help support treaters who may find themselves working with a client struggling with P-OCD and/or folx navigating this extremely distressing subtype of OCD, I have created a pretty straightforward chart of the *basics* around the differential diagnosis (see below).

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