Summary of Book
Obsessive Compulsive Disorders: Treating and Understanding Crippling Habits, written by Steven Levenkron, takes the reader through the lives of the author’s patients who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorders (OCDs), and breaks down the what, when, how, and why of these various OCDs, as well as the different methods of treating them. The book begins with Levenkron discussing the different kinds of OCDs. Most of the book focuses on how and when OCDs begin and develop, and also analyzes five different treatment mechanisms: psychodynamic therapy, psychotherapy, group therapy, medication, and hospitalization.
Connection to Psychology Concepts
Concept 1. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD is characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts and actions. Levenkron
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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This condition is characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, and jumpy anxiety, which are due to a traumatic experience. Even though PTSD is not an obsessive compulsive disorder, Levenkron believes it is a trigger of OCDs. Symptoms of OCDS often appear after a trauma. Levenkron tells the stories of how OCDs came about for seven different female patients ranging in age from 5 years old to 16 years old. There stories all had a common theme: each patient had to cope with a situation that was continuous, scary, and secretive. One patient in particular was molested at age five by her father. She described how her feelings of safety and security were “severely diminished” and she was never able to regain the full feeling of safety. As a result, she developed a need to “clean out the contamination” in order to regain her physical integrity and safety. This became satisfied by obsessive compulsive cleaning rituals. Even though these rituals did not really protect her from recurring molestation, her symbolic act of repeated cleaning provided some comforting mechanism to address the violation she had