Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour (Thorsons Health)

by Frederick Toates (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1993

  $3.25

  What is it like to feel you must check a dozen times that the gas is turned off before you can leave the house? Or to lock and re-lock the front door until you are hours late for work? Do you repeatedly wash your hands until they are chapped and sore? Sufferers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are often highly intelligent and creative people, but they are slaves to persistent unwanted thoughts, tormented by irrational fears of death and contamination. One in ten individuals suffer from one form or another of obsessional thought or behaviour at some time in their lives - the behaviour needn't be bizarre or extreme to qualify. This book aims to help sufferers to overcome these obsessions. Frederick Toates is an experimental psychologist and a former sufferer from obsessional thoughts himself. He explains factors that may trigger the disorder, vital dos and don'ts for the sufferer, the available treatments and pitfalls, and how carers and families can cope.

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.25

  As many as 1 in 30 adults and 1 in 100 children currently suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is much more common than was previously thought, with up to 2 million people being affected in the UK. Sufferers experience intrusive thoughts and anxieties resulting in compulsive behaviour that can seem bizarre to those that have no experience of the disorder. Why would someone feel compelled to touch the four walls of a room in a clockwise fashion as soon as he enters it? Why would someone look at an object 3 times with his right eye, followed by his left eye?OCD sufferers are aware that these rituals are excessive and irrational, but they cannot control their behaviour. They are plagued by intrusive thoughts that they cannot banish from their mind and are often tormented by these thoughts which they find profoundly disgusting or upsetting. The cause of OCD is still not known, but it does appear to run in families and can occur together with other disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders and Tourette s syndrome.Dr Frederick Toates, an experimental psychologist relates his own experiences of obsessional neurosis and his successful quest for a cure in th