This presentation will explain some key ideas in mental contamination, and outline how CBT can help to approach change.

Our late colleague Jack Rachman described mental contamination as:

‘…a sense of internal un-cleanness which can and usually does arise and persist regardless of the presence or absence of external, observable dirt’  (Rachman, 1994)

The sense of mental contamination can occur following an experience of being 'contaminated' by a person, such as betrayal, humiliation or physical or psychological violation.

42% of people with OCD report mental contamination (Coughtrey et al, 2012), however this may not be picked up in assessment or during treatment.

Dr Victoria Bream
Dr Bream trained as a Clinical Psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, and completed the Postgraduate Diploma in Cognitive Therapy at the Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre OCTC. She has joined OHSPIC and the OCTC after 15 years working in the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma (CADAT) at the Maudsley Hospital, specialising in using CBT with people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and related problems, and hoarding disorder. She has provided supervision and teaching to a wide range of trainees and professionals in the NHS, and in local authorities. She has contributed to numerous research publications and is a co-author of the self-help books ‘Break Free from OCD’ and 'Break Free from Maternal Anxiety', and the clinician guide ‘CBT for OCD’ (all books shown below).