OCD Treatment Through Storytelling: A Strategy for Successful Therapy

204 Pages·2011·0.55 MB·English

by  Allen H. Weg

OCD Treatment Through Storytelling
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OCD Treatment Through
Storytelling
A Strategy for Successful Therapy
Allen H. Weg
1
2011
1
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Copyright © 2011 by Oxford University Press
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____________________________________________
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weg, Allen Howard.
OCD treatment through storytelling : a strategy for successful therapy/Allen H. Weg.
p. ; cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-19-538356-0
1. Obsessive-compulsive disorder—Treatment. 2. Exposure therapy. I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder—therapy. 2. Cognitive Therapy—methods.
3. Implosive Therapy—methods. 4. Narration. WM 176 W 411o 2011]
RC533.W442 2011
616.85’227—dc22 2010020138
____________________________________________
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my mother, Sylvia Mauskopf Weg, a survivor of Auschwitz, who has
courageously shared the most diffi cult stories there are to tell.
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Acknowledgments
This book is the result of over two decades worth of learning about
and working with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). The sto-
ries written herein developed naturally out of a need to better commu-
nicate to others the complex, confusing, and always changing world of
OCD. But I needed to fi rst learn about this world for myself before
I could effectively teach it to others. For this, I need to thank the
International OCD Foundation (IOCDF), until recently known as the
Obsessive Compulsive Foundation. It was at this organization’s annual
conferences that I was fi rst introduced to the leaders in the fi eld of
research and therapy for OCD and to the ever-growing number of texts
and journal articles that continue to clarify our understanding of this
disorder and offer ever-newer techniques and therapies to better treat it.
Many of these professionals have become my respected colleagues, and
I continue to learn and get inspiration from them. It was also at these
conferences that I fi rst encountered large numbers of people struggling
with OCD: children there with their families, adolescents trying to
manage an already diffi cult life stage encumbered unimaginably by this
disorder, as well as adults who had suffered in silence and isolation for
many years. It was at these conferences that I saw hopelessness turn to
hopefulness, where I saw impotence turn into empowerment. It was
there that I fi rst experienced the warmth, love, pride, and strength that
constitute the OCD community and that inspired me to make treating
this disorder a large part of my life’s work.
I would also like to thank the members of the Board of Directors of
OCD NJ, an affi liate of the IOCDF, especially its president and trea-
surer, Ina and Julian Spero, who have dedicated the last 12 years of their
postretirement lives to the support of the OCD community in the state
vii
viii acknowledgments
of New Jersey and to the education of the general community about
this disorder. I would also like to thank Board member Dr. Rachel
Strohl, who functioned as my proofreader for this work.
Next, I wish to thank the publishers at Oxford University Press for
their willingness to accept the proposal for this book, even though I was
a relatively untested author and the content of the book was somewhat
untraditional in its focus.
I n addition, this book could not have been written were it not for
the many clients and their families who have shared their struggles with
OCD in their therapy sessions with me. It has been their willingness to
“fl y into the darkness” that has truly been the inspiration for the stories
in this book. For a look inside the world of OCD, there have been no
greater teachers.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their love, support, and
patience. My wife Nadine has had to share me all these years not only
with my clients but with this particular labor of love. My children,
Ethan and Arielle, now teenagers, hardly remember a time when I was
not actively working on this book. Please know that I love you all and
appreciate every sacrifi ce you have made.
Foreword
My father was a great storyteller. He never failed to have a story for
any occasion or any audience, and I never tired of his stories.
I could hear the same ones over and over again, and it was like hearing
them for the fi rst time. Not until later in my life did I realize that my
father was not just entertaining when he told these stories. Through
them, he not only made people laugh, he also made them feel comfort-
able, like insiders. Telling stories made people feel as though he under-
stood what it was like to be in their shoes; his stories earned their trust.
They could relate to him, and they felt he could relate to them. Most of
all, the stories offered lessons about my father’s values, his business
principles, and his expectations of himself and others. As a result, they
stuck with people. Even now, years after his death, people remember
stories my father told them in a wide array of venues—business meet-
ings, family gatherings, parties, funerals, and weddings. For them, my
father’s stories are clear and vivid, as if they just heard them yesterday.
I fully believe this is one of the reasons people liked and trusted him so
inherently.
I was reminded of my father and the power of his stories as I read
OCD Treatment Through Storytelling. Allen Weg guides us through the
therapeutic process of treating OCD in a truly unique way. By using
stories to help clients and their families understand both the experience
of the illness as well as the treatment process, Allen brings us a new
approach to helping clients struggling with OCD.
I have known Allen for some years, both in my role as Program
Director at the OCD Institute at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts
and through my work as the President of the International OCD
Foundation. Allen often refers clients to us at McLean, and I have come
ix