Nobody likes to feel guilt. But when a fear of doing harm to others and feeling guilty as a result gets too severe, it can become pathological.

Excessive fear of guilt can lead a person down the road to developing obsessive-compulsive disorder. An intriguing new theory suggests that in certain cases, an extreme sensitivity to the emotion may be an operative factor in a persons vulnerability to OCD.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder affects roughly 2 percent of the population . People with OCD get caught in a cycle of unwanted, intrusive thoughts, performing ritualistic behaviors in an attempt to ease the distress. These unwanted thoughts often revolve around a fear of losing control, harming others, being exposed to germs or contamination, or having inappropriate sexual desires. The individual then looks to compulsive behaviors like repeatedly reciting a mantra, counting or washing ones hands to rid oneself of the disturbing thoughts.

A study by Italian researchers published last month in the journal Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy suggests that individuals with OCD may perceive guilt to be more threatening than most people do, leading them to find it intolerable. Any thought or impulse that might inspire guilt, then, is met with extreme anxiety and with attempts to cleanse oneself of the mental intrusion.

There are mixed research findings about whether being prone to guilt puts you at a higher risk for developing OCD, but the new study suggests that its being highly sensitive to guilt, rather than simply being guilt-prone, thats important.

Most of the previous studies focused on guilt-proneness and failed to support its specific role in OCD, Dr. Gabriele Melli, the studys lead author, told The Huffington Post. In our opinion, OCD patients are not more prone to guilt than other people but they fear feelings of guilt, and many rituals and avoidance behaviors are motivated by the need to avoid this emotion in the future.

Melli also suggests that fear of guilt is involved in OCD the way fear of fear is related to panic disorders.

The Fear of Guilt