Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression
Jun 24, 2026 · 39 min · 11 segments
In this episode, I sit down with OCD therapist and scrupulosity specialist Justin Hughes to explore how religious OCD can hijack faith, why common attempts to find certainty often make things worse…
Justin HughesGuestKimberley QuinlanHost[gentle music] Right now, somebody is praying for the fourth time today, not because they want to, because they have to.
Because if they don't, the thought comes back, the one that says they've done something unforgivable, the one that says God can't love them anymore, the one that feels less like anxiety and more like the truth.
It's OCD, and the cruel, devastating irony is that it almost always attacks the people who care the most about their faith.
Today, I'm sitting down with Justin Hughes, a wonderful therapist and author who specializes in exactly this, religious OCD, also called scrupulosity.
And what we're going to talk about today is going to challenge almost everything you've been told about these thoughts.
Because the common belief is that if you're having these dark, blasphemous, or terrifying thoughts about God, something must be really wrong with you, therefore you just pray more, you confess more, you seek reassurance, you try harder.
In this episode, we're gonna talk about all things scrupulosity, religious OCD, and name the faith-based thoughts that people are too ashamed to say out loud.
We will explain exactly why every strategy you've tried has made it worse, and show you exactly what actually leads you through to recovery.
Now, if you've been suffering with scrupulosity alone in silence, convinced you're spiritually broken, this episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit is exactly for you.
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[gentle music] Right now, somebody is praying for the fourth time today, not because they want to, because they have to.
Because if they don't, the thought comes back, the one that says they've done something unforgivable, the one that says God can't love them anymore, the one that feels less like anxiety and more like the truth.
It's OCD, and the cruel, devastating irony is that it almost always attacks the people who care the most about their faith.
Today, I'm sitting down with Justin Hughes, a wonderful therapist and author who specializes in exactly this, religious OCD, also called scrupulosity.
And what we're going to talk about today is going to challenge almost everything you've been told about these thoughts.
Because the common belief is that if you're having these dark, blasphemous, or terrifying thoughts about God, something must be really wrong with you, therefore you just pray more, you confess more, you seek reassurance, you try harder.
In this episode, we're gonna talk about all things scrupulosity, religious OCD, and name the faith-based thoughts that people are too ashamed to say out loud.
We will explain exactly why every strategy you've tried has made it worse, and show you exactly what actually leads you through to recovery.
Now, if you've been suffering with scrupulosity alone in silence, convinced you're spiritually broken, this episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit is exactly for you.
