TV Show "Obsessed"

[Dee Dee Warren]

This show follows cases of people with OCD that are treated with cognitive behavioural therapy for 12 weeks. I just watched the one with Christa. After watching that one, I believe that this show can be very exploitive and wrong.

Christa had way too many problems that could be fixed in 12 weeks. At the end, she told her therapist "I don't want you to go." But that was it. We treat you for 12 weeks to entertain people, and then you are thrown back in. Within a month she relapsed. It was like giving her a small taste of what real life could be like, and then taking it away. Her family has a history of suicides. I can't imagine this doing any good for her, and I fear for her.

[{Tim}]

That's just wrong.

Shall we once again be paying to laugh at the lunatics in the insane asylum, soon?

(NB I'm not saying the program was necessarily making fun of or laughing at people with problems. I am saying I agree with DD -- it's wrong to treat someone for 12 weeks then dump them. If they were going to do it at all, they should have organised something ongoing for them.)

[Dee Dee Warren]

Some of the cases were moderate to mild OCD with highly motivated people. Those seemed pretty successful. But there have been many cases that just seem way too extreme for this. Christa was self-mutilating.

[lilpixieofterror]

How morbid have we gotten when we find it entertaining to watch and even laugh at people who seriously need have mental problems they need help with. I have no problem with some reality shows (some, like the one where they rebuild people's houses for them are quite useful). This sounds just plan sick to me.

[Dee Dee Warren]

I may have given a wrong impression. The show can be useful, but I think with Christa at least it crossed the line. I am sure there are people, prolly lots, that's just laugh. There are others who get educated. But I bet most of the audience is fellow OCDers.. which I am not so sure is so great. It is a good thing to the extent to realize they are not alone. It is a bad thing in that part of controlling OCD is not to OCD on your OCD if that makes any sense. It is like putting chocolate in front of a dieter. Until the last show I watched it didn't really relate to me that personally as the people had different issues than I. But there was one guy who had some similar ones, and rather than making me even more settled in leaving them behind, it sort of gave me the idea to do some of them again. I won't. But maybe someone else would.

And I am not too sure that they distinguish enough between phobias and OCD though there is some overlap. I am also not too sure that the immersive cognitive behavioural therapy is always the best route, particularly when something is more phobic than OCD. If that was tried on me with an acute phobia, it would definitely do more harm than good.

Now all that being said. I wish there was a show like this when I was a teenager. I didn't think anyone else did the odd things I did. It would have been very freeing to know I was not alone. It wasn't until the Internet that I learned I wasn't the only one, and then opened up to a doctor who diagnosed me. Before that, I kept quiet about it.

[lilpixieofterror]

That's good to hear, being over here, I don't get to see many of the new TV shows that are on, but many of those reality shows tend to be (at least how I see it that is) excuses to laugh at other people's misfourtine. Of course, I do doubt that this is the intended effect of the people who produce shows of this type and hopefully that lady will now seek the help she needs.