Digital Reassurance Seeking and OCD: How Your Phone Can Become A Part of the Cycle

Reassurance seeking can be an essential part of managing a person’s distress when they are suffering from OCD. When a person experiences a distressing thought, they often want an answer…quickly. The accessibility to answers is in their hands, which can cause a quick reinforcement of an obsessive and compulsive cycle.

Looking for answers through digital media isn’t necessarily always a problem…however, someone with OCD might be using this avenue because they cannot tolerate uncertainty. The inability to tolerate uncertainty is a cornerstone concept in OCD. A person who excessively seeks reassurance online is not just ‘looking for answers’, they are looking to ease their extreme distress and find absolute certainty.

Unfortunately, certainty seekers will not find certainty in their online research if their OCD is running their motives. They may find a quick answer and then feel immediate relief. They will feel the relief until a new doubt creeps in…

What if the article was wrong?

What if ChatGPT doesn’t actually know?

What if I asked the question the wrong way?

I just need to look one more time….

These searches feed the OCD cycle by giving the researcher temporary relief, then doubt, then the need to check again. It can be never-ending and completely all-encompassing.

How to Manage the ‘Need to Know’

Someone experiencing the urge to find reassurance online might not recognize right away that they are in a compulsion cycle until they realize they are never getting the ‘right’ answer. They might just be ‘doing research’ or ‘finding something out really quick’. Having

unlimited access to information, research, and online forums can make it seem like the ‘answer’ is never enough.

It is important to find the patterns that reinforce the cycle when trying to break out of digital reassurance seeking. Once a person recognizes they are in the cycle, they must learn to sit with their uncertainty and discomfort. An important question to ask themselves might be, “What is my OCD trying to find out? Am I looking for an answer or am I looking for certainty?” This question can help you manage a compulsive reassurance-seeking cycle.

Your Phone Doesn’t Need to Turn into a Compulsion

The goal here isn’t to avoid media, digital resources, or information. The goal is to recognize when your brain is distressed by a lack of certainty. The ability to sit with uncertainty and discomfort is essential to managing OCD.

In the case of digital reassurance seeking, you can notice the thought, feel the discomfort of uncertainty, and sit with it without picking up your phone.

Response prevention is critical here. Not every thought needs action, and not every feeling needs answers.

Theory & Method Therapy offers OCD treatment in Salt Lake City, UT and Reno, NV. Schedule a free consultation at theoryandmethod.co.