Archives: 2014 & Earlier

The Thought That Counts: A Firsthand Account of One Teenager’s Experience with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Jared Douglas Kant, Martin Franklin, Linda Wasmer Andrews
Oxford University Press, with the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands and the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania
159 pages. $9.95.

This compelling account of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is written by a 2006 college graduate who describes his biologically based, overwhelming need to count items and scrub away every germ. When “puberty with OCD verged on the ludicrous,” Kant found helpful treatment with a cognitive-behavioral therapy called exposure and response prevention. He has become a college tutor, a speaker about OCD, and a contributor to the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation’s website for young people (www.ocfoundation.org/organizedchaos).

Kant’s co-authors – a clinical psychiatrist and a health writer – add descriptions of warning signs, causes and therapies. The book includes frequently asked questions, a glossary and resource lists that name other titles in this exemplary series from the Adolescent Mental Health Initiative of the Annenberg Foundation Trust. Another series title, Chasing the High, is described under Substance Abuse. (212) 726-6000, www.oup.com/us.

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