Taboo OCD Themes (Episode 155)
Disordered: Anxiety Help
Josh Fletcher and Drew Linsalata
4.9 • 663 Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
OCD is a difficult condition to navigate, but it becomes significantly more challenging when obsessions center on taboo topics. Themes involving harm, pedophilia (pOCD), sexual orientation (HOCD), or moral and religious failure often carry a heavy burden of shame. This shame frequently drives people into silence, preventing them from seeking the help they need.
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In this episode, Drew is joined by Jess Marriner, an OCD specialist based in the UK. They discuss why the human brain can latch onto these specific themes and why having a "taboo" thought does not reflect your character or your actual desires.
Key Topics Discussed:
The Nature of Taboo Thoughts: Recognizing that intrusive thoughts about harm or socially unacceptable acts are common mental occurrences and do not make you a dangerous person.
The Role of Shame: How the socially unacceptable nature of these themes feeds the OCD cycle and keeps sufferers isolated.
Common Compulsions: Identifying sneaky mental rituals like reassurance seeking, thought neutralizing, and "testing" to see if a thought feels true.
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP): How to approach treatment by leaning into the discomfort and uncertainty rather than fighting the content of the thoughts.
The Goal of Recovery: Moving from a state of constant panic and checking to a place where thoughts are seen as irrelevant mental noise.
If you are struggling with taboo obsessions, this conversation highlights that you are not alone and that recovery is possible through evidence-based approaches like ERP and acceptance-based strategies.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A person with pedophilia, OCD or HomoCD is not homicidal. |
| 0:04.6 | They are not a serial killer and they are not a pedophile. |
| 0:07.0 | They are simply not. |
| 0:08.0 | They're afraid that they are, but they are not. |
| 0:11.0 | I can't possibly be a good person if I've had that thought. |
| 0:14.0 | I can't possibly be a good mom if I've imagined harming my child. |
| 0:18.0 | If you even have a thought about that, you are one of the bad guys. |
| 0:23.0 | Yes. |
| 0:23.3 | That's not true. |
| 0:24.4 | Really sneaky compulsions, such as reassurance, thought neutralizing, pushing the thoughts |
| 0:30.2 | out of your head, replacing bad thoughts with good thoughts, add images with good images, |
| 0:35.1 | anything that essentially tries to kind of neutralize this stuff in their head that they don't like, that makes sense to the person in the moment, it's actually having the complete opposite effect. |
| 0:44.3 | It's reinforcing this idea that they are this awful person and feeding their OCD, so they're getting more and more stuck. |
| 0:53.3 | Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 155. Today we're talking about taboo themes in OCD, obsessive |
| 0:59.7 | compulsive disorder. I am Drew Linzalata, one half of disordered. I am a therapist that specializes in |
| 1:05.3 | the treatment of anxiety and anxiety disorders practicing in New York. I am a former sufferer of the very things we talk about |
| 1:11.8 | on this podcast, four-time author on the topic. Normally, I would be joined by my co-host, my friend, |
| 1:18.1 | my podcast partner, Josh Fletcher, but Josh is on the road today. His new book, same time next week, |
| 1:23.9 | was released today. It's May 26, 2026, by the way. So he is on a book tour at the moment promoting that book. It's a great book. You should check it out. It's called same time next week. Josh is a good dude. He wrote a really good book. I've had the privilege of reading it ahead of time and I really enjoyed it. So Josh is not here today. The good news is we can still talk about taboo themes and OCD because Josh and I have the privilege |
| 1:44.3 | of interacting with and getting to know many excellent, excellent clinicians and therapists |
| 1:48.7 | around the world who share our theoretical orientation and our specialty. So I called on my |
| 1:53.8 | friend Jess Mariner. Jess is a OCD specialist in the UK with super short notice and |
... |
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