Ep.123: Living with Sexual Obsessions (with Alegra Kastens)

Your Anxiety Toolkit - Anxiety & OCD Strategies for Everyday

Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT | Anxiety & OCD Specialist

Self-improvement, Education, Anxietymindfulnessmeditation, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.9 • 802 Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2019

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Living with Sexual Obsessions Alegra Kastens Obsessive Compulsive Disorder OCD Depression CBT ERP Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast Kimberley Quinlan

Welcome to Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast! Today I am so thrilled to introduce to you this week's guest, Alegra Kastens, MA. Alegra is not just a guest on the podcast. Alegra is also a very important part of CBT School and has helped me so much since CBT School launched in 2018. Alegra Kastens has been a huge part of the creation of this podcast, uploading it each week, creating a lot of the technological support, creating images and supporting me when I am struggling with all the projects. Alegra is now moving forward with her career and is working as a therapist who specializes in OCD.

In today's discussion, Alegra told us about the first moment she had her first intrusive thought and how these impacted her life. She also shared with us the process of her finally deciding to ask for help, even though she was petrified and so ashamed. Alegra shared what she found helpful and not helpful from her therapist and how she was supported and encouraged to seek specialized OCD treatment from her therapist who did not specialize in OCD.

What I loved most about this episode is that Alegra Kastens so candidly talks about her experience of shame, guilt, and stigma related to having OCD. Alegra’s main sub-type of OCD was pedophilia obsessions, which caused her to be stuck in self-doubt, self-criticism and complete panic for a very long time. Alegra Kastens shared what it was like to experience sexual obsessions such as pedophilia obsessions and what it was like to undergo Exposure and Response prevention for her OCD symptoms. Alegra shared some of the ERP exposures looked like and the importance of being given psycho-education about ERP before beginning. I loved how much education and inspiration Alegra Kastens brought to this conversation.

To learn more about her story, click HERE to read an article she wrote for IntrusiveThoughts.org.

For more information on Alegra Kastens, visit:

Instagram: @ObsessivelyEverAfter

Website: www.alegrakastens.com

Psychology Today blog: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-things-anxiety

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Your Anxiety Toolkit, episode number 123.
0:11.0	Welcome to Your Anxiety Toolkit. I'm your host, Kimberly Quinlan. This podcast is fueled by three main goals.
0:19.7	The first goal is to provide you with some extra
0:22.1	tools to help you manage your anxiety. Second goal, to inspire you. Anxiety doesn't get to decide
0:28.9	how you live your life. And number three, and I leave the best for last, is to provide you
0:34.7	with one big, fat virtual hug hug because experiencing anxiety ain't easy.
0:40.7	If that sounds good to you, let's go.
0:48.2	Well, welcome back. I am so happy to have you here with me today on this beautiful sort of fall day.
0:56.1	You guys, it has been a week over here in Southern California.
0:59.9	We have had another set of very serious fires.
1:04.7	I'm not going to lie, the air is just stinky.
1:09.4	And as you can tell, my voice is actually a little croaky here for the
1:12.7	intro because for some reason, I'm really, really easily affected by the smoke. So please do forgive me.
1:20.3	I am so excited to share with you this episode. This episode has been planned for months and months and months,
1:30.6	but because of the nature of this relationship with the interviewee and the guests we have
1:36.2	today, it just kept getting pushed back and pushed back and now I'm so thrilled to have
1:43.4	the amazing Allegra Castans here on the podcast today. So a little
1:48.6	background, Allegra is someone you actually know really well, even if you've never even heard of
1:55.5	her name before. I know a lot of you have. A lot of you follow her on Instagram at Obsessively Ever After. That's her
2:02.7	handle name. But if you've never heard of her, you do at least have some familiarity with her
2:08.2	because she is the incredible human being who has been uploading and managing this podcast
2:16.1	for over a year.
	...

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