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Mike Emlet

Scrupulosity: When Doubts Devour

Journal of Biblical Counseling 33:3

In this article, Mike Emlet walks us through the experience of scrupulosity, which is considered a subtype of obsessive compulsive disorder. Overly-scrupulous people are plagued by obsessive doubts and worries about their spiritual and moral lives and engage in various repetitive behaviors to try to quiet their anxiety. Emlet identifies the connection between scrupulosity and several key misunderstandings of the character and ways of God, and lays out a careful path forward to help strugglers break the cyclical pattern, including learning to “doubt their doubts.”