Routledge Living Beyond OCD Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: A Workbook for Adults

This user-friendly workbook provides adults with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), the tools they need to move beyond their disorder using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and it also serves as compact text for clinicians/practitioners to use with clients suffering from OCD at any point in treatment. The workbook offers readers hands-on ACT and Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) skills for taming disturbing obsessions and filling the gap of where one stands and where one wants to go. Dr. Zurita provides evidence-based exercises to guide adults through the process of ACT. This includes learning to step back from one’s thoughts and memories, opening up to all types of unwanted thoughts and feelings, paying attention to the physical world, observing one’s thoughts and feelings, getting rid of barriers to values-based living, and developing consistent patterns of values-based behavior. Written from the office of a full-time therapist in a simple, uncomplicated, and unpretentious manner, this workbook will be useful for all clients suffering from OCD and for the therapists who work with them. Review "Dr. Z. has been treating OCD for many years, and passionately too. Her interest in OCD keeps her approach to treating it fresh. Merging the tried and tested, with the new. In her new book, she demonstrates how ERP and ACT can work together to tackle OCD and how readers can make a shift from reactive moves to wise moves. With many exercises to help the reader understand and apply these skills. Thank you Dr. Z. for your dedication and service to the OCD community!"- Stuart Ralph, The OCD Stories "This is a very helpful book for anyone who has been struggling with obsessive-compulsive tendencies––and who is sick and tired of allowing them to hold them back from the life they really want to live. This workbook will help you identify what truly matters to you and start you moving in those directions with determination and kindness toward yourself. Dr. Z uses her extensive clinical experiences, knowledge and skills to offer you many practical examples and exercises that can truly make a difference in your life. Through different chapters, readers will gain an understanding of how obsessions became a problem, learn to watch their mind, recognize ruling-thoughts, clarify values, and take actions towards values-based exercises. Dr. Z wrote this book with a compassionate heart and open mind in a non-technical, clear, concise, and personable style that makes it easy to work with it. I recommend this book wholeheartedly and without any reservations.––Georg H. Eifert, PhD, Chapman University Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Co-Author of Anxiety Happens and the Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety. "This is much more than a workbook: it’s an engaging and informative travel guide for the journey to OCD recovery. A passionate expert in OCD, Dr. Z is your wise and caring companion, offering step-by-step guidance for how to make choices that put you, not OCD, in the driver’s seat. Her tips, tools, and insights provide not only a roadmap to recovery, but also a process for enjoying the journey―and your life―along the way."Shala Nicely, LPC author, Is Fred in the Refrigerator? Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life "Even the best OCD clinicians struggle to provide effective treatment with clients who have strong belief in their obsessions, avoidance of emotions, and wavering motivation. Adults with OCD often present this way and many clinicians refer them out as they feel inadequate to help. This workbook offers a way forward using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a model for how to provide exposure therapy and get back into your life. Regardless the type or form of OCD a person is dealing with, the intersection of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Exposure Response Prevention applies to all of them and those key skills are highlighted in every chapter in a skillful and accessible manner. Dr. Zuri