[stubish]

OCD fears are often completely irrational, and sufferers often know it. That doesn't make the fears and anxiety less real. The common cleaning compulsion isn't so much to make things clean, but an attempt to cope with the fear and anxiety.

Still, education could point out that the behavior is not rational, and help acknowledge that there is a problem if the behavior is still necessary.

In some ways, the best compulsions are the ones that have a solution like washing your hands or checking the lock on the door four times. Unfortunately a lot of the 'what if' scenarios can't be so easily dispelled.