Reddit reviews Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, Updated Edition
We found 18 Reddit comments about Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, Updated Edition. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Berkley Publishing Group
Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty
Specifically what she referred me to is that in the book the author has a bunch of example "exposure scripts", it's like an exercise to ease obsessions through exposure therapy. If you wanna talk more about it PM me my dude
Yeah, it's definitely real - although many contemporary psychologists reject the idea that it is actually "purely" obsessional. The more reasonable interpretations are that the compulsions themselves become mental (for example, instead of checking the door five times when you leave the house, you check your memory five times every time you think you might be a bad person or might have committed some crime).
Here's a quote from an eminent psychologist:
"The category of primary mental obsessions has also been referred to as pure-O, suggesting that both obsessions and compulsions are entirely mental, with no behavioral rituals or avoidances. Many sufferers with primarily mental obsessions are concerned that there is no treatment for pure-O for two reasons. First, believing that they have no behavioral components to their OCD, they assume that there aren't any exposures they can do. If you are worried about this you'll be happy to know that you are wrong. There is exposure for the primary mental obsessions: imaginal exposure... The second reason many of you may despair is that you have read elsewhere that primary mental obsessions can be harder to treat. They can be more difficult to treat, but far less so than what you have read suggests"
It's from this book, pg. 220:
https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-Personalized/dp/042527389X
I'm sorry if I came off blunt, but posting on here every few weeks isn't going to magic up an answer, and you didn't say anything about getting help you just posted the same thing as before. Getting better means you stop entertaining the "am I a monster" question, so not posting it on reddit or anywhere else, and you focus on what's important, which is resisting compulsions and looking after your dog as normal.
Here are three different workbooks that have been incredibly helpful for lots of people:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/OCD-Workbook-Obsessive-Compulsive-Harbinger-Self-Help/dp/1572249218
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-Workbook-OCD-Overcoming-Compulsions/dp/1608828786/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Freedom-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-Personalized/dp/042527389X/
I suggest you pick one and get yourself started with a positive and confident attitude. You can ABSOLUTELY get better from this. But posting on here is the opposite of recovery, it is making you sicker because you're hoping someone will give you the magic sentence that clears this up for you, which reinforces your need to go over the questions in your head. Go give your doggo a cuddle and have a look at the reviews of the workbooks. If you want to get a better understanding of OCD check out the OCD Stories podcast (on YT and itunes). Over a hundred interviews with specialists and sufferers, and check out Mark Freeman on Youtube to learn a bit more about handling painful and difficult thoughts, as well as Katie D'Ath who has a short series explaining how OCD works and what's going on in your head. These resources have been instrumental in my own recovery, which isn't 'full' yet but is miles better than the wreck I was a few months ago.
Reddit is a cesspit of people half-managing their condition and giving terrible advice and it will drag you down into getting worse. If you get the urge to post you're honestly better off taking your dog for a walk and watching a movie until the urge subsides. There are no answers here, only illness and you're better than that.
ERP is one of the most well studied psychotherapy treatments in general. It's the gold standard for the treatment of OCD. Jodi Aman doesn't include information about any training or license to provide treatment for OCD on her website. Though I didn't watch her video, judging from what you said, she doesn't seem to understand treatment of OCD very well. I also recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/042527389X
See but that's the problem with OCD. It is a slippery slope. What was once "good enough" can change and no longer be good because of one reason or another. The only way to help is to break the cycle and for the OCD sufferer to accept uncertainty into their lives.
This book is extremely helpful.
I did my best to start working on them all at once, but because they're so hard to identify, I found you kinda work on them one by one or a few at a time no matter what. I took on and stopped as many as I could, but for weeks and months I was like oh man, there's another one.
Have you heard of this book? https://smile.amazon.com/Freedom-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-Personalized/dp/042527389X
It is a book written by a leading OCD expert for people who are not or are unable to work with a therapist, and guides them through learning about the disorder and creating their own exposure program. I worked with a therapist and still found this book very useful, I would highly recommend it.
I still struggle to identify mental compulsions vs. normal thoughts, I think that's just a part of the disorder. It gets better and you can learn cues that help you tell them apart much better, but a bit of the uncertainty is always there.
Good luck, you're inspiring. I know how hard it is to do ERP while working with a therapist. Doing it yourself is amazing.
I read your whole list and while I'm not too familiar with medication but it's good to hear you have access to Psychiatrist's. If the "voices" in your head aren't your "thinking voice" I would talk to your psychiatrist immediately. it won't hurt to at least check up with them. Just remember overcoming OCD is a long process and not a "smooth" road you might have set back, days that are worse than others, etc... I would buy this book by Dr. Jonathan Grayson Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, Updated Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/042527389X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jxOOBb3CJPEG0
It's the best piece of literature on OCD that I've read, you would think the author has OCD himself. It also gives you the tools to and shows you how to make your own recovery program. And if you have access to Psychiatrist's/ Therapists even better because you can work through it with them.
PS A general rule of thumb is to accept uncertainty and do the opposite of whatever your fear/obsession for example, "yeah, maybe the devil wants me to do this and maybe this makes me a bad/sinful person"
I would do the recovery program with a therapist I think that would be best.
Best of luck
-Dean
If you can't afford therapy
this
Book was very useful for me. It talks about the "feared consequence" of OCD. When you know your feared consequence you target your ERP around it. And yeah, changing the thoughts wont help.
Yeah, I can definitely relate, because I also had that problem before I was able to finally find therapy. If you are down for it, there definitely are self-help ERP books that allow you to create your own exposure exercises. /u/accidental_warrior always seems to recommend Johnathan Grayson's books. He is quite an amazing and experienced OCD psychologist, so his book is always an option. Here is a link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/042527389X?pldnSite=1
Hi there! I have Real Event OCD which is mostly mental compulsions (i.e. ruminating) and intrusive thoughts, and I've been doing ERP with a therapist for the last month. My treatment involves creating scripts to listen to (including imaginal exposure scripts, as u/ace2573 mentioned) that confront the worst case scenarios that I fear. I also have to perform tasks specific to things that trigger anxiety related to my fears. We've been following the basic plan in this book:
Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, Updated Edition
The book covers all kinds of OCD, and has a small section on Pure O, but it's laid out in a way that allows the activities to be modified for any specific OCD theme. It has a lot of examples of scripts that can be used to modify to your specific needs. I would recommend doing ERP under the guidance of your therapist instead of on your own, as it can be triggering at first, but it's really been helping me. Good luck! :)
That's a great book if you have the discipline to do ERP on your own. Some other good books are:
[Freedom from OCD] (https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-Personalized/dp/042527389X) and Mindfulness Workbook for OCD. The nocd app is on ios / android and can aid you in your ERP at home.
What kind of background do you have with exposure therapy? Are you looking to learn about it in general? Are you curious about how to approach it with a specific person in mind? I ask, since that might help point you in some good direction.
"Traditional" exposure therapy relies heavily addressing negative reinforcement (operant conditioning), with an emphasis on habituation. Having a solid understanding of how negative reinforcement fuels anxiety disorders is a fundamental starting place in this line of work. Since exposure therapy works by attempting to extinguish a fear response through habituation, understanding this process becomes important not only for your own knowledge, but for psycheducation to help your clients/patients understand why you want them to do the things you'll ask them to do (e.g., face their fears).
It's worth noting that the habituation model isn't the only way to approach exposure therapy. Michelle Craske's article on inhibitory learning provides some additional context on enhancing exposure work and offers some useful insights that move beyond the habituation model. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) provides another school of thought involving exposure work, but as that's outside of my area of expertise I'm hesitant to recommend books there. However, anything by Steven Hayes is bound to be a good way to learn more about ACT
Within the habituation realm, Exposure Therapy for Anxiety Disorders would be a good place to start, as it gives a broad overview of the concepts and begins delving into specifics.
Beyond that, however, my suggestion would be to focus on learning about exposure and response prevention (ERP), particularly for OCD. The concepts here apply to every other anxiety disorder (although certain adjustments need to be made in certain situations, such as patients with BDD or PTSD). OCD is simultaneously simple and complex to treat with ERP. The principles are straightforward (i.e., response prevention aimed towards compulsions, exposure aimed to obsessions and avoidance), but building and designing the appropriate treatment plans takes a solid understanding of both the process of ERP and a patient's individual symptoms. Two great places to start are The "Treatments That Work" book on OCD, which is part of the reading list for the International OCD foundation's Behavior Therapy Training Institute (BTTI), as well as Johnathan Grayson's book, Freedom from OCD, which I recommend to all of my patients with OCD.
/edit - spelling
Get this book as well. It goes over erp for religous scrupolicity.
Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, Updated Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/042527389X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_vdQiDbXDSCEXH
>btw, tell her that she’s very brave for her actions. Dun think I’ll do the same in the same situation.
I try to remind her of her bravery as often as I can. You should say the same for yourself. I bet you'd be surprised what you're capable of in the moment. You face fears every single day.
“Bravery is not a feeling; bravery is how you behave when you are scared. You are among the bravest people I know.” - Johnathon Grayson
You should check out his book, Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and then let any of your friends or family borrow it who don't seem to understand what you're going through.
You're a tough cookie. I'm not scared. If I was, I probably wouldn't have the bravery to accomplish 1/10 what you can.
The teeth stuff sounds really hard. If you haven't read it Jonathan Grayson's book has some advice about dealing with illness-related OCD...I can't remember it well enough to summarize it, but I remember he talks about tinnitus and other health problems. You might find it useful:
https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-Personalized/dp/042527389X
Hey, I am sorry your experience was so rough when you tried to get help the first time. I can sympathize with you and your obsessions look like OCD to me, though I'm not a professional. Have you considered going to another doctor to help you? Sometimes it takes getting the right one for it to work. If you can't, there are books out there about OCD that are helpful, two of my favorites before being able to see a therapist were Brain Lock by Jeffrey Schwartz and Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Jonathan Grayson, but there are even more than that.
I really hope you can break the cycle soon, no one deserves to get their quality of life diminished by something like this.
I have had issues like yours, where I have several "go-to" thoughts that I was never able to get out of my mind, just terrible thoughts. They would last for years.
ERP can definitely help you with this - I'm proof, as are many others on this board. I would urge you to read Dr. Jonathan Grayson's book, Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disoder. It's the best book on OCD I have ever read.
https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-Personalized/dp/042527389X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=30F8WQ22FR6V68ZKZA1H
If one was regularly ignored, abandoned, discounted, disclaimed, and rejected -- as well as invalidated, confused, betrayed, insulted, criticized, judged, blamed, embarrassed, humiliated, victimized, demonized, persecuted, picked on, dumped on, bullied, scapegoated, and/or otherwise abused -- by others upon whom they depended for survival in early life, they may have been in-struct-ed, programmed, conditioned, socialized and/or normalized to beliefs, values, ideals, principles, convictions, rules, codes, regulations and requirements about how we or they (or the world) should / must / ought / have to be.
But even though OCD has a major cognitive component, unlike OCPD, OCD is psychotic and requires a medicinal as well as behavioral treatment scheme.
Here's a road map:
. . . a) CBTs including REBT, collegiate critical thinking, schema therapy, and CPT; as well as the
. . . b) "super-CBTs" like MBCT, DBT (the long-time gold standard for BPD symptom management), ACT, MBBT, and MBSR; and the
. . . c) "deep cleaners" like EMDR, HBCP, SEPt, SP4T and NARM.
The CBTs deconstruct one's inaccurate beliefs, values, ideals, principles, convictions, rules, codes, regulations and requirements about how we or they (or the world) should / must / ought / have to be. DBT, MBCT, ACT, MBBT and MBSR are terrific for emotional symptom management. EMDR, HBCT, SEPt, SP4T and NARM are first-rate for memory-reprocessing, sense-making and detachment from the conditioning, programming, etc.
To find the clinicians who know how to use these psychotherapies, look here, and here, and here, and (for DBT specialists in particular) here. If you dig a little on each page, you will be able to see which therapies they use. Then interview them as though they were applying for a job with your company. Most MD / psychiatrists, btw, are not therapists themselves (they are medication specialists), but can refer you to those who are, and are often -- though not always -- excellent sources of referral.