July/August 2016
Today, with all the presumed advances therapists have made in reducing mental suffering from previously untreatable conditions, is there a solution, a cure, a fix for OCD? As with so many difficult emotional conditions, the answer is far from simple, not least because OCD appears to bear a strong genetic component. Still, we have more knowledge about how to recognize it, and how to distinguish it from other conditions that it often mimics, including PTSD, depression, and even psychosis. More importantly, many specialists working with OCD employ some variation on what two authors for this issue, Martin Seif and Sally Winston, call “upside-down therapy,” an approach that seems to break, or at least bend, the rules of what many of us have been taught is good clinical practice.
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Breaking the Rules with Our OCD Clients
July/August 2016
It’s now clear that much of what therapists do for people suffering from OCD actually worsens the problem. Providing empathic reassurance, rational disputation, and coping skills to manage anxiety only serves to refuel the obsession. So how do you avoid the dead end of co-compulsing with your clients?
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A Therapeutic Odyssey
July/August 2016
An OCD sufferer describes the frustrating stops and starts and misdirections of her circuitous search for help in escaping the maze of her family of origin and the deep-seated tropes in her own brain.
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It’s a Family Affair
July/August 2016
OCD in children can operate like a kind of cult leader, demanding acceptance of an extreme view of a perilous reality and offering solutions that can’t be resisted, no matter how absurd they may sound. Given the overwhelming fear and worry the condition generates, falling in line with the cult leader can seem like the best strategy—except that it doesn’t work.
Freud Chose to Face the End on His Own Terms
By Katie Roiphe
July/August 2016
For most of us, death is a subject hovering in the shadows of our lives, willfully ignored until it’s suddenly standing rudely before us, the world’s worst party crasher. But the supremely self-willed Sigmund Freud began preparing for death many decades before the actual event, determined not to be cowed by it. For him, anything less would’ve been a blot on psychoanalysis.
Has Porn Become a Public Health Crisis?
July/August 2016
Has pornography become a public health crisis?
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Moving through Grief
By David Kessler
July/August 2016
How Kübler-Ross’s stage model of dealing with loss can help grieving clients heal.
Upgrading the Software: A One-Session Cure for An Obnoxious Habit
July/August 2016
Sometimes there’s no need for a detailed assessment of a client’s entire life history and their family relationships, especially when the desired outcome is changing an automatic habit like nose-picking.
Introvert Power: Susan Cain Wants to Correct a Cultural Bias
July/August 2016
Susan Cain, the bestselling author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, believes that our world has been ruled by extroverts long enough.
Have SSRIs Gotten a Bad Rep? The Author of "Listening to Prozac" Thinks So
July/August 2016
Ordinarily Well: The Case for Antidepressants In his latest book, Peter Kramer argues that medications represent the best, most effective tool for fighting the bleakness of depression.
Kendall’s Prom: A Special Daughter’s Special Night
July/August 2016
An young woman with autism celebrates a very special night.