The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD: A Guide to Overcoming Obsessions and Compulsions Using Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbooks)

3 thoughts on “The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD: A Guide to Overcoming Obsessions and Compulsions Using Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbooks)”

• 19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

  
  Highly beneficial synthesis of mindfulness, cognitive therapy and exposure, March 26, 2014

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  Robin Kirk –

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  This review is from: The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD: A Guide to Overcoming Obsessions and Compulsions Using Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbooks) (Kindle Edition)

  The authors write from a perspective of warmth, humanity and respect for the reader which is apparent throughout the book. The encouraging and reflective comments peppering the book make one feel that a trusted guide is sitting nearby and that the journey is not being taken alone. They do a masterful job of describing cognitive distortions in the particular ways they might appear in OCD and the descriptions of what acceptance and minfulness might look like for various obsessions pulls everything together. The Acceptance, Assessment and Action system is a very helpful way of framing treatment and not only is this book a wonderful adjunct to therapy, it is also of tremendous benefit to those for whom treatment is inaccessible. I highly recommend The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD both to clinians and individuals suffering with OCD.

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• 17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

  
  Excellent workbook for clients with OCD, February 22, 2014

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  Robert W. McLellarn –

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  This review is from: The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD: A Guide to Overcoming Obsessions and Compulsions Using Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbooks) (Paperback)

  I recently finished reading the book “The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD” by Jon Hershfield, MFT and Tom Corboy, MFT and I have to say I was quite impressed and have already started using many of their ideas with my current OCD clients (as well as clients with other kinds of anxiety disorders besides OCD!). Both authors clearly have a wealth of experience working with OCD and share a number of useful ideas, tips, and techniques in their book. Essentially, mindfulness is moment to moment nonjudgmental awareness of what is happening in your mind. When you start paying attention to what your mind is actually doing, it is really quite surprising how little of the time we really are present. So often we get lost in our thoughts, react to them without thinking, and get caught up in our thought streams which can take us into some very dark and scary places which are very far from the present moment. And this entire process takes place without us being aware that it is happening – we may not be aware that we have a choice to not pay attention to our thoughts and see then for what they are as just “thoughts” and simply not respond. As one develops the ability to be more mindful it is possible to notice these things happening and the very noticing then gives us the possibility of making a different choice. If, after touching a doorknob, I suddenly feel the urge to rush to the bathroom and wash the germs off my hands, I can mindfully be aware that I’m having thoughts about my hands being contaminated but also since I am now more aware I can make a choice to either do what I’ve always done, rush to wash my hands, or I can make a choice in the moment to stay with the discomfort and see what happens. Mindfulness allows me to be aware of the “automatic pilot” and to disengage from what may have become long-standing habits of responding to discomfort by seeking immediate relief. The authors also certainly incorporate more traditional Cognitive Behavioral Treatment approaches such as Exposure and Response Prevention and cognitive restructuring, but they add to our clinical repertoire these new techniques derived from mindfulness which I think only serve to enhance the effectiveness of these more traditional approaches.
  The book begins with several chapters on mindfulness, followed by a very useful chapter entitled “Acceptance, Assessment, Action”, then there are nine chapters on applying their particular techniques to specific kinds of OCD, and finally a few chapters at the end on maintaining your progress and preventing relapse. I highly recommend this book to anybody who is suffering from any form of OCD, and, in fact, anyone suffering from other types of anxiety as well as I believe the

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• 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

  
  The new gold standard for OCD treatment, April 22, 2014

  By 

  Richard S. Gallagher (Upstate NY USA) –
  
    

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  This review is from: The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD: A Guide to Overcoming Obsessions and Compulsions Using Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbooks) (Paperback)

  I am a CBT therapist who now enthusiastically prescribes this book to all of my OCD clients. Jon Hershfield – a well-respected clinician who suffers from OCD himself – and his co-author Tom Corboy have laid out a very accessible and evidence-based approach that makes sense for sufferers.

  As other reviewers have pointed out, mindfulness techniques that help you observe rather than react to OCD thoughts are becoming an important component in recovery. I feel an equally important point is the book’s emphasis on starting with gradual steps toward exposure. Classic exposure and response therapy (or ERP) was been described by at least one person who supports it as “the cruelest form of therapy,” and it reports a high dropout rate in the literature – conversely Hershfield’s gentle, positive and hopeful approach, undoubtedly borne of his own perspective as a recovering sufferer, will help open the doors of treatment for many more people. I highly recommend this book for anyone who suffers from OCD.

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