Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

Beyond Symptom Themes: Affective-Motivational Processes in OCD

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy invites researchers and practitioners in the field of OCD to contribute to a special issue focused on “affective-motivational domains in OCD.” We welcome original research articles, conceptual/theoretical papers, and review articles that explore the role of harm/guilt avoidance, disgust avoidance, and not-just-right experience (NJRE)/incompleteness avoidance in the development, maintenance, assessment, and treatment of OCD. Submissions examining the conceptual, empirical, and clinical utility of these dimensions, their overlap and distinctions, and their implications for case conceptualization, intervention, and classification are particularly encouraged.

Background

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a highly heterogeneous condition, and traditional symptom-based classifications (e.g., symmetry obsessions, washing compulsions), while clinically useful, often provide limited insight into the underlying processes that drive and maintain symptoms. This special series aims to advance a complementary framework that organizes OCD around core affective-motivational dimensions, including harm/guilt avoidance, disgust avoidance, and not-just-right experience (NJRE)/incompleteness avoidance. By integrating dispersed theoretical, empirical, and clinical literatures, the series will highlight the value of understanding OCD through functional motivational processes and explore implications for assessment, case conceptualization, treatment planning, and the dissemination of functionally informed clinical approaches.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Conceptualizing OCD Beyond Symptom Themes: Papers examining the theoretical foundations, advantages, limitations, and empirical testability of affective-motivational approaches to understanding OCD.
• Harm and Guilt Avoidance: Research on the roles of responsibility, anticipated harm, guilt sensitivity, moral concerns, and fear of guilt in the development and maintenance of OCD symptoms across traditional symptom themes.
• Disgust Avoidance: Studies investigating disgust-related processes in OCD, including contamination fears, mental contamination, moral disgust, taboo thoughts, assessment of disgust, and implications for treatment.
• Not-Just-Right Experiences and Incompleteness: Work examining NJREs, incompleteness, sensory phenomena, and the need for correctness, completion, or certainty as motivational processes underlying compulsive behavior.
• Assessment of Affective-Motivational Dimensions: Development, validation, and application of measures assessing harm/guilt avoidance, disgust avoidance, incompleteness/NJREs, and related motivational processes in OCD.
• Functional Case Conceptualization: Research and clinical papers exploring how affective-motivational formulations can enhance assessment, individualized case conceptualization, and understanding of symptom maintenance.
• Implications for Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP): Investigations of how identifying motivational processes can inform the design, implementation, and optimization of ERP and related cognitive-behavioral interventions.
• Treatment Personalization and Mechanisms of Change: Studies examining whether affective-motivational dimensions predict treatment response, mediate clinical improvement, or facilitate more personalized interventions.
• Experimental, Cognitive, and Neurobehavioral Approaches: Research using behavioral, cognitive, psychophysiological, neuroscientific, or laboratory-based methods to investigate motivational processes in OCD.
• Dimensional and Transdiagnostic Perspectives: Work exploring the relationship of affective-motivational dimensions to broader models of psychopathology, transdiagnostic processes, and functional approaches to mental disorders.
• Implementation and Dissemination: Studies addressing clinician training, functional assessment in routine practice, integration of motivational formulations into treatment planning and supervision, and barriers to implementation.
• Future Directions in Motivational Science of OCD: Articles proposing new theoretical developments, identifying additional motivational dimensions, and outlining research priorities for advancing a functional understanding of OCD.

Submission Guidelines

Please submit your manuscripts through the journal's online submission system, following the author guidelines available on the journal's website.

Important Dates 

Submission Deadline: March 1, 2027

Peer Review Process: Initial decisions will be made by the Guest Editors. Papers to be considered for peer review will then move through the 3-6-month peer review process. The aim is to have all papers in their final form by September 1, 2027.

Publication Date: Fall/winter 2027

Guest Editors

Jonathan S. Abramowitz, PhD - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Gabriele Melli, PhD - Institute for Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology and Psychotherapy, Florence, Italy

For inquiries and submissions, please contact the guest editors at jabramowitz@unc.edu, g.melli@ipsico.it 

We look forward to receiving your contributions and fostering a vibrant dialogue on the affective-motivational processes that underlie OCD, their implications for assessment and treatment, and their potential to advance a more functionally informed understanding of obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

The Cognitive Behavior Therapy editorial team