The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing: Experience and Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - Softcover

Rapoport, Dr. Judith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006375197 ISBN 13: 9780006375197

Publisher: Fopntana / HarperCollins, 1990

Synopsis

In this examination of obsessive-compulsive behaviour case-histories are described, often in the words of the afflicted, and the effectiveness of various treatments is discussed. This pathological state is now regarded as much more common than was thought earlier, with possibly a million cases in Britain. The boy who couldn't stop washing is only one case described. There is also the man who is convinced, every time he drives his car, that he has run someone over and turns back again and again to check the roadside for a body; the woman who, in an effort to ensure her eyebrows are symmetrical, finally plucks out every hair; a man who cannot enter his front door without completing an elaborate ritual; another who checks his stove hundreds of times a day to make sure he really turned off the gas.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

An adolescent boy spends six hours a day washing himself – and still cannot believe he will ever be clean. A woman, in an attempt to make her eyebrows symmetrical, finally plucks out each and every hair. Another person cannot go through a door without completing an elaborate ritual.

All these people are suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, OCD, a disease which is now thought to affect more than a million people in Britain alone. But until now, sufferers have been silent, ashamed of their bizarre behaviour.

'The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing' is the first book to explain about OCD. It tells the stories of the afflicted, often in their own words. More importantly, it describes the successes doctors and patients have had with both experimental and existing treatments during the last eighteen years, at last offering hope to OCD sufferers.

"Deeply moving and impressive"
OLIVER SACKS

"Highly readable and engaging ... deserves to be read"
ANTHONY CLARE

"A remarkable treatise ... fascinating"
MAIL ON SUNDAY

About this edition

• Publisher: Fopntana / HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0006375197
• ISBN 13: 9780006375197
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256