OCD Manager

I've just finished playing with a free account on MockFlow.com and made a mockup sketch of a diagnostic app for OCD.

Often in class we've talked about people suffering from OCD as lacking a sense of accomplishment for tasks, so they redo them, making a ritual around them to try and make it feel right. My teacher, Prof Dar, would say that in such a case even love becomes a question of accomplishment - how do I know that I love someone? Is it because we're married? Because she makes me laugh? In this way life is reduced to something we would expect to find on The SIMS, Second Life, or our Facebook life - places filled with events that replace authentic feelings. How do you know you love on FAcebook? By your Likes and your relationship status. Well, then maybe people suffering from OCD can benefit from social gaming dynamics in the same way.

The OCD manager is meant to facilitate a common CBT homework assignment - keeping record of rituals and repeating thoughts. It could also help people suffering from OCD manage their rituals, by logging what they've just done, but much cooler would be if reducing life into events, would emulate the lacking sense of accomplishment.

Tell me what you think :)

http://www.slideshare.net/orushka/ocd-manager

I saw some guy stole my name for the app and is now selling his understanding of it in itunes. It's not as good as my idea but still, may he die of OCD.

The obsessive compulsive style (Shapiro, 1965)

In his chapter "obsessive compulsive style," David Shapiro (1965) describes the characteristics of obsessive compulsive (OC) people, beginning with the rigidity of thought which is clinically observed with compulsive characters. Shapiro depicts this characteristic as limited, very focused attention; an unwillingness to divert from an interest or a position or listen to other parties in conversation.

            Shapiro then depicts a second major characteristic as a mode of action. He refers to OC people as work prone, work invested, workaholics – not necessarily over-productive, but treating every life situation as a productive process that requires effort on their side – even enjoyment. Effort is described as mental effort of preoccupation about an issue, not necessarily making evident pragmatic efforts towards it. Shapiro connects this to a damaged sense of autonomy, attuned to a sense of should over a sense of will, with demanding impulses that threaten the cores of intent and control; then awareness becomes their struggle, and all human behavior becomes an issue to preoccupy with – an effort. Their struggle is to keep from madness.

            If a keyhole attention and a troubled soul aren’t enough, Shapiro adds a loss of the sense of reality to the mental dynamics of the obsessive compulsive people. The authentic position is replaced with a logical perspective. The logical perspective is maintained by the narrowing attention, and its maintenance is an effort. Spontaneous right and wrong are missing from their judgment and they mediate their experience with rational criticism instead.

            In view of DSM-IV-TR's criteria list for OCD and OCPD, I believe Shapiro is describing the dynamics of an obsessive compulsive personality disorder. His emphasis is on obsessions, and less on the very evident compulsions and rituals expected in an OCD by the manual. Furthermore, Shapiro's everyday register and empathic description of psyche dynamics may tell us that this phenomenon is on the clinical doorstep, not yet inside the madhouse.

It is said that Cameron Diaz suffers from OCD!

Jessica Alba too.