Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Beverly Beyette, Beverly Beyette (With)

From the Publisher

An estimated 5 million Americans suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and live diminished lives in which they are compelled to obsess about something or to repeat a similar task over and over. Traditionally, OCD has been treated with Prozac or similar drugs. The problem with medication, aside from its cost, is that 30 percent of people treated don't respond to it, and when the pills stop, the symptoms invariably return.

In Brain Lock, Jeffrey M. Schwartz presents a simple four-step method for overcoming OCD that is so effective, it's now used in academic treatment centers throughout the world. Proven by brain-imaging tests to actually alter the brain's chemistry, this method doesn't rely on psychopharmaceuticals. Instead, patients use cognitive self-therapy and behavior modification to develop new patterns of response to their obsessions. In essence, they use the mind to fix the brain. Using the real-life stories of actual patients, Brain Lock explains this revolutionary method and provides readers with the inspiration and tools to free themselves from their psychic prisons and regain control of their lives.

What People Are Saying

Eric Hollander
"A remarkable achievement! This book will make a world of difference in the lives of people with OCD."

Product Details

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

(in chronological order)

"One who is slow to anger is better than a warrior, and one who rules his spirit is better than one who takes a city. "

--King Solomon, Proverbs 16:32

"You yourself must do the strenuous work. Enlightened Ones can only show the way."

--Gotama Buddha, Dhammapada 276

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: For whatever you may sow, that you will also reap."

--St. Paul the Apostle, Galatians 6:7

"God helps those who help themselves."

--Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac, 1736

Step 1. Relabel

Step 2. Reattribute

Step 3. Refocus

Step 4. Revalue

Step 1:Relabelanswers the question, " What are these bothersome, intrusive thoughts?" The important point to keep in mind is that you mustRelabel these unwanted thoughts, urges, and behaviorsYou mustcall them what they really are: They are obsessions and compulsions.You must make a conscious effort to keep firmly grounded in reality. You must strive to avoid being tricked into thinking that the feeling that you need to check or to count or to wash, for example, is a real need. It is not.

Your thoughts and urges are symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a medical disease.

Professor Gallagher, as you see, has his own ideas about "curing" patients who suffer from frightening and intrusive thoughts or obsessions.

He is actually performing a cartoon variation onwhat is known in the language of traditional behavior therapy as "flooding." Unfortunately, this poor patient more than likely ended up crazed rather than cured.

In working with patients with OCD, our UCLA team has had excellent results using behavior therapy, sometimes in conjunction with medication. Ours is not Gallagher's sink-or-swim approach but, rather, a long-term self-directed therapy we call cognitive-biobehavioral self-treatment.

Typically, our first consultation with a person with OCD begins with the person explaining with a considerable amount of embarrassment, "Doctor, I know this sounds kind of crazy, but . . . "

The person then describes one or more from a checklist of classic OCD symptoms: compulsive washing or checking, irrational violent or blasphemous thoughts, or feelings of impending doom or catastrophe unless some bizarre or senseless ritual is performed.

These people usually know that no one is supposed to think such weird thoughts. As a consequence, they feel humiliated and at their wit's end. Their self-esteem has plummeted, their OCD may well have affected their ability to perform on the job, and they may even have become socially dysfunctional, withdrawing from family and friends in an attempt to hide these awful behaviors

In treatment, the person is first assured that the diagnosis is just OCD. It is just the brain sending false messages. We show pictures of the brains of people with OCD that prove conclusively that OCD is associated with a biochemical problem that causes the underside of the front part of the brain to overheat.

In short, the person is suffering from Brain Lock. The brain has become stuck in an inappropriate groove. The key to unlocking the brain is behavior therapy, and that begins with the Relabeling step.

Relabeling simply means calling the unwanted thoughts and urges by their real names--obsessive thoughts and compulsive urges. These are not just uncomfortable feelings like "maybe it's dirty," but gnawing and unremitting obsessions. Not just bothersome urges to check for the fourth or the fifth time, but brutal, compulsive urges.

This is war, and the enemy is OCD. In fighting back, it is critical to keep in mind what that enemy really is. The person with OCD has a powerful weapon: the knowledge that "It's not me--it's OCD." He or she works constantly to prevent confusing the true self with the voice of OCD.

All well and good, you may say, but OCD has a mind of its own. It won't shut up. To this I reply, "Yes it will, but it takes time." Praying for OCD to go away won't instantly make it happen, nor will idle and futile cursing.

If you wish to pray, what you should pray for is the strength to help yourself. God helps those who help themselves, and it's only reasonable to believe that God would help someone engaged in such a worthwhile struggle. In this case, it means concentrating on doing the right thing, while letting go of an excessive concern with feelings and comfort level. This is, in the best sense, performing a good work!

At the same time, it is medical self-treatment that begins with accepting what you cannot change--at least in the short term.

Right off, it is vital to understand that the simple act of Relabeling will not make your OCD disappear. But when you see this enemy for what it is, OCD, you sap its strength and you, in turn, become stronger.

In time, it won't matter that much to you whether the bothersome thoughts totally go away because you are not going to act on them. Furthermore, the more you are able to dismiss the importance of your OCD, the more you will feel in control and the more it will go away. On the other hand, the more you focus on it, wishing and hoping and begging for it to leave you alone, the more intense and bothersome the feelings will become

Because OCD can be a fiendishly clever opponent and a demonically self-protective one, it will deny that it is simply a false message from your brain. You may say, "A plane is not going to crash because I didn't wash my hands again." But OCD will say, "Oh, yes it will, and many people will die." That's the time to show some faith and strength because you know what the truth is.

You can't afford to listen. If you sit and fret about whether OCD is going to invade your life on a given day, you're only assuring yourself more dread and pain. You must say, "Go ahead, make my day. Just try to make me wash my hands one more time."

Then you must deal with the ever-present uncertainty, "How can I be sure that this is not me, just my OCD?" Well, perhaps there are no metaphysical guarantees that there is no possible relationship between hand washing and a plane crash, but I can guarantee that if you give in and wash your hands again, things will only get worse and the OCD will only get stronger. On the other hand, within a few minutes of Refocusing on another behavior and not responding to the OCD, the fear of some dreadful consequence will begin to fade, and you will begin to see the OCD compulsion as the ridiculous nonsense it is.

The decision is clear-cut: Listen to your OCD and have your life disrupted and ultimately destroyed, or fight back, secure in the knowledge that within a few minutes you will begin to feel more and more certain that planes aren't going to fly into mountains and cars aren't going to crash just because you didn't wash your hands or check the lock again.

It is a matter of exerting effort so that good triumphs over evil.

At UCLA, our patients have come up with amazingly creative ways of applying the Four Steps--Relabel, Reattribute, Refocus, Revalue.

Chet, who has since successfully controlled his OCD through behavior therapy and is now in dental school, was obsessed by violent thoughts. If he saw a fire, he thought he had started it. If he heard that someone had been fatally shot across town, he obsessed that he had done it. He would walk around saying to himself, "Man, you're just one messed-up guy. You're a bad person." He was in a dead-end job that he hated and was dealing with debt. These factors made his stress level escalate and his OCD symptoms worsen. Stress commonly heightens OCD anxieties.

At first, when Chet began Relabeling, telling himself that his violent thoughts were just OCD, his OCD would talk back, "Oh, is this upsetting you? Why? Maybe because you really will do it." By gaining the knowledge that OCD is a biochemical imbalance in the brain, Chet was eventually able to use this phrase with his OCD: "Don't be polemical--it's just a chemical."

Anticipation is an important substep in Relabeling, and Chet understood it perfectly. Watching a movie in which he knew a violent scene was coming, he would tell himself, "Okay, here comes my obsessive thought." When he did that, it didn't hurt as much.

In combating his OCD, Chet was both pragmatic and philosophical. He had always wished that he were six inches taller, he reasoned, but he knew that wishing wasn't going to make him grow and he could deal with being short. He realized it was the same with OCD: Wishing wouldn't make it go away, but he could learn to deal with it.