Brain Lock, Twentieth Anniversary Edition: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior

240 Pages·2016·1.97 MB·English

by  Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Dedication
This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather HARRY WEINSTEIN
and to the memory of my father
ISRAEL VICTOR SCHWARTZ
and to the memory of my step-father GARY FLUMENBAUM
Three men who deeply knew, each in his own unique way, that nothing makes
sense without original sin.
Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FOREWORD
PREFACE TO THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
INTRODUCTION: Obsessions, Compulsions, and the Four-Step Self-Treatment
Method
PART I: The Four Steps
1: Step 1: Relabel: “It’s Not Me—It’s My OCD”
2: Step 2: Reattribute: “Unlocking Your Brain”
3: Step 3: Refocus: “Wishing Won’t Make It So”
4: Step 4: Revalue: “Lessons Learned from OCD”
PART II: Applying the Four Steps to Your Life
5: The Four Steps and Personal Freedom
6: OCD as a Family Disorder
7: The Four Steps and Other Disorders: Overeating, Substance Abuse,
Pathological Gambling, and Compulsive Sexual Behavior
8: The Four Steps and Traditional Approaches to Behavior Therapy
9: OCD and Medication
10: University of Hamburg Obsession-Compulsion Inventory Screening Form
11: An OCD Patient’s Diary of Four-Step Self-Treatment
PART III: Self-Treatment Manual for the Four-Step Method
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY JEFFREY M. SCHWARTZ
CREDITS
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Acknowledgments
This book, and all that’s been learned in the twenty ensuing years about how to
apply the Four Steps, has been made possible by the OCD sufferers with whom I
have had the privilege of interacting in my work at UCLA and beyond. I would
also like to give special thanks to Peter Whybrow, MD for his support of my
appointment at UCLA, and to Beverly Beyette, who made a tremendous effort to
help the book be as good and useful to as many people as we could make it.
Foreword
Howard Hughes was dining with actress Jane Greer at Ciro’s on the Sunset Strip
in Los Angeles one evening in 1947. At one point in the meal, he excused
himself to go to the rest room. To Greer’s amazement, he did not return for an
hour and a half. When he finally reappeared, she was astonished to see that he
was soaking wet from head to toe.
“What on earth happened to you?” she asked. “Well,” Hughes said, “I spilled
some catsup on my shirt and pants and had to wash them out in the sink.” He
then let them dry for a while, hanging them over one of the toilet stalls. Once he
put his clothes back on, he explained, “I couldn’t leave the bathroom because I
couldn’t touch the door handle. I had to wait for someone to come in.”
According to Peter H. Brown, coauthor with Pat Broeske of Howard
Hughes: The Untold Story, Jane Greer never went out with Hughes again.
Howard Hughes was eccentric, certainly, but he was not a freak. He was
suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a classic and severe case.
By the end of his life, in 1976, he was overwhelmed by the disease. He spent his
last days in isolation in his top-floor suite at the Princess Hotel in Acapulco,
where he had sealed himself in a hospital-like atmosphere, terrified of germs.
Blackout curtains at every window kept all sunlight out; the sun, he thought,
might transmit the germs he so dreaded. Aides with facial tissues covering their
hands brought him food, which had to be precisely cut and measured.
Rumors abounded that he was this reclusive because of drug abuse, a
syphilitic condition, or terminal dementia. Actually, all his strange behaviors are
readily understandable as symptoms of a severe case of OCD.
Sadly, there was no treatment for OCD in Howard Hughes’s lifetime. It
would be another decade before the disease would be identified as a brain-
related disorder.
I frequently cite the case of Howard Hughes to help my patients understand
that this disease, OCD, is an insatiable monster. The more you give in, the
hungrier it gets. Even Hughes, with all his millions—and a retinue of servants to
perform the bizarre rituals his OCD told him to perform—could not buy his way
out. Eventually, the false messages coming from his brain overwhelmed him.
If you are one of many who suffer from OCD, whether it is a mild case or
one as severe as Howard Hughes’s, this book will show you how to fight and
beat it. OCD is a tenacious enemy, but a strong-willed, motivated person can
overcome it.
Along the way, you will also learn a good deal about your brain and how you
can control it better. You will read the stories of courageous people who, by
applying the Four-Step Method, learned how to overcome the dreaded feelings
of “Brain Lock” that are caused by OCD. This method, which has been
scientifically demonstrated to enable people to change their own brain function,
will be described in such a way that you can readily apply it yourself.
In the 2004 film The Aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed Howard Hughes.
Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz was a consultant on the film, coaching the actor in OCD
thought patterns and mannerisms. DiCaprio said he also read Brain Lock, so as
to “truly understand the idea of the sticky gearshift” in Hughes’s brain.
Preface to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition
The core concept of Brain Lock—that people with OCD can defeat their disease
through self-directed behavioral therapy that actually changes their brains—has
withstood the test of time. Now, twenty years after this book was first published,
it is accepted as a classic finding in the history of neuroscience.
In scientific terms, this is neuroplasticity, a process resulting in changes to
the brain’s structure, circuits, chemistry or functions in response to changes in its
environment. And self-directed neuroplasticity, using the Four-Step program
explained in this book, has empowered thousands of people with OCD to change
their own brains.
Brain scans have clearly shown that the brains of OCD sufferers literally
flare up with over activity, sending terribly bothersome and intrusive false
messages (see images on the back cover). In the last two decades, further brain
studies have validated the finding that putting these troubling feelings in proper
context, calling them what they are—symptoms of a disease—enables people to
respond differently to their symptoms and, as a result, to regulate the structures
of the emotional brain that play a key role in processing their feelings in reaction
to the OCD-inducing stimuli.
This milestone edition of Brain Lock is not a revision. It’s my sincere belief
that there is no need to revise the Four-Step method. The cognitive-mindfulness
treatment approach first presented in this book is now accepted as a standard
outpatient OCD treatment.
Now, twenty years later, I continue doing research and working to help OCD
sufferers. I’ve concentrated also on further developing the Four-Step method to
help people—not only those with neuropsychiatric problems like OCD, but those
with no specifically diagnosed problem—to perform at a higher and more
effective level.
The method has proven very valuable, for example, in enhancing people’s
capacities to develop their leadership abilities through use of the Wise Advocate
concept, which you’ll read more about in these pages. In short, we’ve learned
that the Four Steps can help anyone become more in touch with his or her True
Self.
Since Brain Lock was first published, I have lectured at conferences in major
world cities, spoken before the United Nations and appeared on widely viewed
television programs, including the Today show Good Morning America, and The
Oprah Winfrey Show.
This new peface serves to refine, and further clarify, the Four Steps to self-
directed therapy: Relabel, Reattribute, Refocus and Revalue. When OCD
patients Relabel, they are calling their disturbing thoughts and urges what they
really are: obsessions and compulsions. When they Reattribute, they recognize
that the bothersome thoughts won’t go away because they are symptoms of a
disease, OCD. When they Refocus, they work around the intrusive thoughts by
doing a constructive, enjoyable behavior. When they Revalue, they learn to
ignore those thoughts and view them as worthless distractions.
Patients who have used this method have told courageous, though often
heartbreaking, stories about their lives before the Four Steps. Happily, many
stories have had inspiring outcomes. In sharing them, they have provided
illuminating insights for all OCD sufferers.
Anna, who related her story in Brain Lock, was once suicidal. For years, she
had obsessed that her husband was unfaithful. She would bombard him
relentlessly with questions: When had he last seen a former girlfriend? Did he
read girlie magazines?
Now married for twenty-five years and the mother of two adult daughters,
Anna doesn’t consider herself cured—that isn’t realistic—but she has gained the
insights necessary to manage her disease. Importantly, she also has a supportive
partner. “If I have an urge, I might ask one question and my husband will say,
‘you know that’s an OCD question.’ You need a second party to cooperate and
he usually isn’t cooperative because he knows it’s unhealthy.”
Aware that “coping with OCD over a lifetime is a maintenance issue,” and
that for her the Four Steps are essential tools, she still keeps in touch.
Reed is an actor whose OCD caused such paralyzing stage fright that he
abandoned acting for fifteen years. His was not garden variety stage fright, but a
panic-inducing fear fueled by the thought that “everything I did had to be
perfect.” At auditions, he was sure that “people could see that I was faking it and
that I was imperfect.”