Download In the many books that have been written about OCD, none has

In the many books that have been written about OCD, none has looked specifically at
how telling stories or using metaphors in therapy can help to facilitate treatment. Yet, at
the same time, most books on OCD do in fact utilize storytelling to help clarify certain
concepts. For instance, stories are often used to illustrate how OCD is experienced by the
person who has it, or to better explain how and why therapy works. This is a natural and
reasonable thing to do, since OCD often appears so bizarre (“He seems so normal and
reasonable in most ways, but then you see him do this really crazy looking stuff!”), and
the cognitive behavioral treatment of the disorder can often be so counter-intuitive, that
mere instruction and explanation can often leave the listener less than satisfied, and often
still confused and frustrated.
Telling stories and using metaphors in therapy can help to present the subtle and often
confusing concepts that surround OCD and its treatment in a more succinct and concrete
way. But while many books on OCD have used stories for these purposes, none have
examined the use of storytelling as the subject of the book itself. This book does.
These stories do not talk about OCD directly. Rather, they describe events, sometimes
autobiographical in nature, sometimes common personal experiences that we all share,
sometimes events from our collective consciousness such as works from the world of
entertainment, that illustrate a feeling, a strategy, a dynamic, or an intervention relevant
to OCD or its treatment. Over a period of many years, the author developed these stories
during the course of therapy for his clients and their families. These stories are now
collected and presented to you here, told in exactly the way that they would be in a
therapy session.