Books for Prep | |
 - SeriouslyThis book saved my life nine years ago. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My life is no longer ruled by anxiety. Thank you R.W. and E.F. Rating:  - Not quite perfectThis was listed as the top choice for obsessive-compulsive disorder by the Carlat Report for December 2005 in a review of self-help books in psychiatry (www.thecarlatreport.com). It is very much a self-help book, directed at patients rather than professionals, but some of the methods recommended seem to assume that a professional is involved and it discusses the use of medication. Indecisions and mentisme are not covered but hoarding (which is seldom due to OCD)is. As with several other self-help books it is without references or statistics so that we have to take some of the claims for effectiveness on trust. The professional reputations of the authors are so high that I would be inclined to trust them, although in some of the cases described the remedy looks worse than the disease. Their recommendations for dealing with contamination fears, and also their techniques for coping with contrast ideas, might be quite distressing. An academic quibble is that the techniques mostly seem to be plain vanilla behavior therapy, rather than cognitive. The cognitive therapy of Beck (and its avatar, the rational-emotive therapy of Ellis) involve arguing patients out of their symptoms by convincing them of the logical errors of their thinking, a futile endeavor in OCD. This book recommends the kinds of treatment that many of us have found useful empirically whatever our theoretical background. Sigmund Freud (in one of his letters to Binswanger) discusses a case of OCD and recommends what is called in Norman Guterman's translation "counter-compulsion." (His classic paper on OCD is usually considered the 1909 "Rat Man" whom he did treat by psychoanalysis. That was published as "Der Familienroman der Neurotiker Bemerkung einen Fall von Zwangneurose" for those of you who own the Sammlung kleiner Schriften. In the Collier paperback series, edited by Philip Rieff, the "Rat Man" case is in "Three Case Histories" ) Where Foa and Wilson fall short of Freud, and of Judith Rappaport's "The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing," is in literary merit. They write clearly and understandably but this is not something that the general reader would want to read cover to cover. Rating: - Just what the doctor orderedThis book comes highly recommended by my doctor and is living up to its reputation! Rating: - Great book - highly recommendedThis is an excellent book. I think it is the best self-help book on OCD. Luckily my CB therapist does these exact techniques with me in therapy so it's like this book is a hard-copy of the work I am doing. It's a great reference manual. Take this book seriously - it will help you if you follow the practices with as much patience and effort as you can. The thing that clicked for me after ready only the first few chapters of this book, is that my thoughts are obsessions! They are exagerrated, irrational, not based on reality! I never before could grasp that concept because I actually believed that my obsessions and suspicions might be real (that I was just missing something) and that somehow my mental compulsions would help me to relieve the tension and anxiety that my obsessive thoughts were causing. It's amazing... it all literally clicked. These thoughts are obsessions. They are NOT REAL!! Wow. Rating: - Stop Obsessing by Foa and WilsonThe book describes a host of obsessive/compulsive behaviors together with strategies to overcome them. For instance, washers tend to clean their hands multiple times, take many showers and repeat actions obsessively or due to shear habit. Repeaters tend to repeat actions compulsively until they are performed perfectly or to the perceived satisfaction of the person with "a repeater" behavioral trait. Hoarders tend to gather "things" out of a fear of discarding something valuable. The hoarder may keep every possession ever owned for fear of throwing out a single valuable thing. Hoarders never consider the opportunity cost of space. As a self-help book, the authors identify classic situations that trigger these unhealthy behaviors. Once identified, specific strategies are provided to combat the undesired behaviors/behavioral traits. A strength of this book is that it helps you to conquer a host of unhealthy demons which trigger neurotic retaliatory responses. The authors encourage readers to act contrary to these destructive proclivities every time they surface. The book is worth the price charged-many times over. The issues addressed are rarely talked about or admitted to during the conduct of public discourse. This book provides readers with a private forum to discover their eccentric behaviors without the penalty of public chastisement or derision. The book is recommended highly for this purpose alone. In association with Amazon.com | |