Video Reflection Exercise 1-Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Description of Video:An 8 minute documentary on an individual's struggle and recovery from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Includes interview footage with a clinician who practices cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Filmed in London (Ontario, Canada) and produced by Michael Woods.
Question Submission Procedures and Deadlines:I suggest that you keep these questions nearby and answer them during the video. You will be able to pause and rewind the video if necessary. Your final submission must be typed. You may use this as a template to type in your answers.
Questions: Please answer the following questions after/while viewing the video.
1. How does the patient define “obsessions” and “compulsions”?
Obsessions:
Obsessions are unwanted thoughts in the mind of a person that are very repetitive and distressing.
Compulsions:
Compulasions are the physical or mental actions that have to be repeated over and over.
2. What were the patient’s earliest symptoms of OCD in childhood?
He didn’t want to get any dirt near him, so he didn’t play with other kids.
3. How did his hand washing progress? Describe what happened with Lysol and his laundry.
When the illness progressed, he did excessive handwashing for a long period of time. After quite a while, he started to use Lysol all over his body: his legs, face, head, etc. When the illness progressed further, the patient found laundry as a serious and important chore. Even when his laundry basket touched anything, or when it went through any door or room on the way to the bathroom, he had to wash it again and again.
4. In what unhealthy ways did he cope with his OCD?
He drank, smoked pot every single day in great amounts.
5. According to the therapist, how do you know if you should get professional help?
The patient should realize how much some things impact his or her life, or what problems they cause in the relationships or work process.
6. According to the therapist, what are the goals of CBT?
The main goals of CBT are to reduce anxiety or depression by realizing how the patient’s thoughts and feelings interact with each other and to make sense of any thoughts that are going on.
7. According to the therapist, what tools are used in CBT?
Trying to identify any rational thoughts of conditions and trying to modify thoughts, so the person doesn’t have negative emotions are the main tools that are used in CBT.
8. Explain the therapy approach to treating his “riding over a bump obsession.”
It motivates him to think and talk about his fear, and imagine what things will happen next. So, the patient just continued driving, realizing that he didn’t hit anyone or anything, sitting with that anxiety that provoked the fear. Eventually, the anxiety went away and he coped with the “riding over a bump obsession.”
9. Define the following as described by the therapist.
Imaginal Exposure:
The patients have to think about the things they fear, about the thoughts and emotions these fears provoke, imagining how they’d act if those things were actually happening.
In vivo Exposure:
The vivo exposure takes patients to the situations that they most fear and makes people get used to them by going through anxiety.
10. Did this patient have success after the therapy? Describe.
The patient felt a huge difference in him after a year and a month of this therapy.
All the obsessions, compulsions, fears, anxiety and hand washing went away. The patient felt like he was trapped in his own mind and after the treatment, he feels like he has a new life he is going to live and new opportunities he is going to take.
