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How Does Thought-Action Fusion Relate to Responsibility Attitudes and Thought Suppression to Aggravate the Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2010

Müjgan Altın  and
Tülin Gençöz
Müjgan Altın
Affiliation:
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
Tülin Gençöz*
Affiliation:
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
*
Reprint requests to Tülin Gençöz, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, Middle East Technical University, Ankara 06531, Turkey. E-mail: tgencoz@metu.edu.tr
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Abstract

Background: Comprehensive cognitive theories of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) propose that clinical obsessions and compulsions arise from specific sorts of dysfunctional beliefs and appraisals, such as inflated sense of responsibility, thought-action fusion (TAF), and thought suppression. Aims: The present study aimed to examine the mediator roles of responsibility and thought suppression between TAF and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Specifically, it aimed to explore the relative effects of TAF factors (i.e. morality and likelihood) on inflated sense of responsibility and on thought suppression to increase the obsessive qualities of intrusions. Method: Two hundred and eighty-three Turkish undergraduate students completed a battery of measures on responsibility, thought suppression, TAF, OC symptoms, and depression. Results: A series of hierarchical regression analyses, where depressive symptoms were controlled for, indicated that TAF-morality and TAF-likelihood follow different paths toward OC symptoms. Although TAF-morality associated with inflated sense of responsibility, TAF-likelihood associated with thought suppression efforts, and in turn these factors increased OC symptoms. Conclusions: These findings provide support for the critical role of sense of responsibility and thought suppression between the relationship of TAF and OC symptoms. Findings were discussed in line with the literature.

Keywords

Thought suppressionresponsibilitythought-action fusionand obsessive-compulsive disorder
Type
Research Article
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 99 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2010

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