Breaking free from OCD : a CBT guide for young people and their families / Jo Derisley ... [et al.] ; illustrated by Lisa Jo Robinson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Part of the Reading Well scheme. 35 books selected by young people and health professionals to provide 13 to 18 year olds with high-quality support, information and advice about common mental health issues and related conditions.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a potentially life-long debilitating disorder, which often emerges during teenage years and affects as many as 1 in every 50 people. Young people living with OCD experience recurrent obsessions or compulsions that are distressing and interfere with their social lives, relationships, educational functioning and careers.

Written by leading experts on OCD, this step-by-step guide is written for adolescents with OCD and their families, to be used in home treatment or as a self-help book. Using the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which is the proven method for helping those with OCD, it offers teenagers a structured plan of treatment which can be read alone, or with a parent, counsellor or mental health worker. The guide provides useful advice and worksheets throughout.

This self-help book for young people is an invaluable resource for adolescents who have suffered from, or know someone who has suffered from, OCD, their families, teachers, carers, and mental health professionals.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Part A Understanding Your OCD
• Chapter 1 About this Book (p. 13)
• Why should I read this book?
• How should I use this book?
• What are the treatments for OCD?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Recommended treatments
• Chapter 2 What is OCD? (p. 19)
• So what is OCD?
• The various symptoms of OCD
• Some information about your thoughts
• Do I have OCD?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• What is obsessive compulsive disorder?
• Does my child have OCD?
• Why does my child have OCD?
• Chapter 3 Can I Get Better from OCD? (p. 31)
• How to get help
• What are the treatments for OCD?
• How do we know treatments work?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Getting help for your child with OCD
• What if my child does not want help?
• What assessment will the doctor do, and what treatments will be recommended?
• Chapter 4 What is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy? (p. 40)
• Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for OCD
• Some facts about CBT for OCD
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Chapter 5 Understanding My OCD (p. 46)
• Understanding your obsessions and compulsions
• The OCD trap
• How does your OCD trap work?
• Drawing your own OCD trap
• What does OCD make me avoid?
• What would life be like without OCD?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Your child's obsessions and compulsions
• How has OCD affected the family?
• Part B How to Recover from Your OCD
• Chapter 6 How to Use this Book to Change Your OCD (p. 61)
• Measuring your OCD
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• How to help
• Summary
• Chapter 7 Understanding the Role of Anxiety (p. 69)
• What is anxiety?
• The physical effects of anxiety
• When is anxiety helpful?
• When is anxiety unhelpful?
• Can anxiety harm me?
• Habituation or 'getting used to' anxiety
• An 'anxiety thermometer'
• Using an 'anxiety thermometer' to rate how you feel about doing a task
• Using an 'anxiety thermometer' to rate how you feel over time
• Anxiety graphs
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Chapter 8 What does My OCD Look Like? (p. 80)
• What are my OCD problems?
• Keeping an OCD diary
• Making an OCD ladder
• Deciding where to start
• What should I do next?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Summary
• Chapter 9 Designing Exposure and Response Prevention Exercises (p. 94)
• What is exposure and response prevention (E/RP)?
• Designing your first E/RP exercise
• Learning to break OCD's rules
• Doing your first E/RP exercise
• Updating your OCD ladder
• What should I do next?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Summary
• Chapter 10 Making Progress with Exposure and Response Prevention Exercises (p. 110)
• How to do more exposure and response prevention (E/RP) exercises
• Making sense of your findings
• What to do if you get stuck
• What should I do if others are involved in my OCD?
• What should I do next?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• When OCD involves you
• How to withdraw from OCD's demands
• What to do about reassurance seeking
• Summary
• Chapter 11 Overcoming Difficulties (p. 120)
• Questions and answers
• What should I do next?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Summary
• Chapter 12 What Is the Role of My Thoughts? (p. 132)
• How important are your thoughts?
• What are typical OCD thoughts?
• Thinking helpful thoughts
• What to say to OCD
• How to think helpful thoughts
• More about fighting back with helpful thoughts
• What should I do next?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Summary
• Chapter 13 How Can I Challenge My Thoughts? (p. 147)
• Learning to put OCD worries on trial
• How to make a responsibility pie-chart
• What should I do next?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• When obsessional thoughts involve you
• Summary
• Chapter 14 How Can I Test Whether My Thoughts Will Come True? (p. 159)
• What is a behavioural experiment?
• Why should I do behavioural experiments?
• How do behavioural experiments work?
• How to carry out a behavioural experiment
• How to overcome problems with behavioural experiments
• What should I do next?
• Check your progress
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• How to help your child understand his or her beliefs
• Summary
• Chapter 15 How to Maintain the Gains I have Made (p. 173)
• When might OCD try to reappear?
• What might OCD look like if it tries to reappear?
• What other things can I do?
• What goals do I have for my life?
• Summary
• Advice for parents or carers
• Part C OCD and the Bigger Picture
• Chapter 16 OCD and My Family (p. 137)
• How does OCD affect families?
• You can overcome OCD
• Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
• Advice for parents or carers
• Chapter 17 OCD, School and Friends (p. 196)
• OCD and school
• OCD and your friends
• Telling your friends about OCD
• Chapter 18 Where to Go for More Information (p. 201)
• Books for young people
• Books for children
• Books for parents or carers
• Websites
• Appendix Questionnaire (p. 206)
• Worksheet List
• Worksheet 2.1 Short obsessive compulsive scale (SOCS) (p. 26)
• Worksheet 5.1 Understanding my obsessions and compulsions (p. 47)
• Worksheet 5.2 Understanding my OCD trap (p. 52)
• Worksheet 5.3 Understanding my child's obsessions and compulsions (p. 56)
• Worksheet 7.1 How anxiety affects me (p. 71)
• Worksheet 8.1 My OCD diary (p. 82)
• Worksheet 8.2 Making my OCD ladder (p. 86)
• Worksheet 8.3 Making an action plan (p. 90)
• Worksheet 9.1 How to break my OCD rules (p. 97)
• Worksheet 9.2 My exposure and response prevention (E/RP) exercise (p. 101)
• Worksheet 9.3 Updating my OCD ladder (p. 104)
• Worksheet 9.4 What progress have I made? (p. 106)
• Worksheet 10.1 My anxiety graphs (p. 112)
• Worksheet 11.1 Making an OCD timetable (p. 122)
• Worksheet 11.2 How to understand difficulties with E/RP exercises (p. 128)
• Worksheet 12.1 How to understand my thoughts (p. 135)
• Worksheet 12.2 Having helpful thoughts (p. 138)
• Worksheet 12.3 Thinking more helpful OCD thoughts (p. 143)
• Worksheet 13.1 How to put my thoughts on trial (p. 150)
• Worksheet 13.2 How to make my own responsibility pie-chart (p. 155)
• Worksheet 14.1 My behavioural experiment (p. 162)
• Worksheet 14.2 How to make sense of my behavioural experiment (p. 169)
• Worksheet 15.1 An action plan for the future - Part I (p. 175)
• Worksheet 15.2 An action plan for the future - Part II (p. 180)
• List of Figures
• Figure 1 Examples of obsessions and compulsions (p. 23)
• Figure 2 How speaking to Sasha could lead to worry (p. 41)
• Figure 3 Thinking differently about speaking to Sasha (p. 42)
• Figure 4 The OCD trap (p. 48)
• Figure 5 Jake's OCD trap (p. 51)
• Figure 6 Caught in the OCD trap: anxiety remains (p. 76)
• Figure 7 Fighting OCD: anxiety reduces with practice at resisting compulsions (p. 76)
• Figure 8 Sam's OCD diary (p. 83)
• Figure 9 Oliver's OCD ladder (p. 88)
• Figure 10 Lisa's small OCD exposure steps (p. 99)
• Figure 11 Lucia's exposure and response prevention exercise (p. 102)
• Figure 12 Jayne's 'thoughts on trial' chart (p. 149)
• Figure 13 Justin's responsibility pie-chart ratings (p. 153)
• Figure 14 Justin's pie-chart (p. 154)
• Figure 15 Ashley's first behavioural experiment result (p. 165)
• Figure 16 Ashley's second behavioural experiment result (p. 167)

Author notes provided by Syndetics