Edna B. Foa - Stop Obsessing!: How to Overcome Your Obsessions and Compulsions

T WO VERY IMPORTANT developments have occurred during the last ten years in the field of mental health and mental disorders. First, we have made great strides in understanding the biological basis of many psychological disorders; second, serious and intensive clinical research from a number of our leading centers has demonstrated that certain drugs can be very useful in treating some of these disorders.

In addition, an equally important development that has not received much attention has also occurred: Effective, brief psychological treatments have become available.

Nevertheless, it is very difficult to spread the word about the effectiveness of these treatments. As of yet there are no large multinational corporations that are making these treatments available to health practitioners and their patients, as is the case with drugs. Until that development takes place, there remains only one satisfactory method to get our best treatments to the public: the self-help program presented in book form. Unfortunately for people suffering from a variety of disorders, the majority of self-help books present programs with no proven effectiveness. Rather, these programs simply represent the thoughts, feelings, and sometimes whims of an individual health professional. But the small minority of self-help books that do present programs with proven effectiveness can be godsends. Stop Obsessing! is one of these books.

This book is important for three reasons. First, the programs described herein have been evaluated at leading clinical centers for over thirty years and have proven to be the treatment of choice for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Second, the authors of this book include one of the leading scientists working in this area, Dr. Edna Foa, who, in her long experience with people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, has produced some of the most important scientific evidence on this treatment and its variations. In addition, Dr. Reid Wilson, a national consultant in the area of anxiety and its disorders, has had wide experience in making these treatments as user friendly as possible. Third, there are few disorders that need a book such as this more than the obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Unfortunately, very few mental-health practitioners are skilled in carrying out this program since only recently has it been included in the curriculum of medical schools, doctoral psychology programs, and other programs that train mental-health practitioners. Therefore, when this program is recommended to someone suffering from the disorder, the most likely result is that there is no professional in the area who is familiar with it. This book solves that problem by presenting the program in an easy-to-use format. For milder cases, the individual can simply work through the program by himself or herself. For more severe cases, as the authors recommend, it would be helpful to work with a mental-health practitioner in following the more intensive version of this program. In either case, this book may be the best news ever for the millions of people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder in all of its forms.

David H. Barlow, Ph.D.,
Professor of Psychology and
Director of Clinical Programs,
Department of Psychology,
Boston University; Research Professor
of Psychiatry; and Director, Center for
Anxiety and Related Disorders at
Boston University