Helper: Suffering and Role Playing Exercise

Today we were doing a role playing exercise, I was assigned the role of helper and my partner Edwin was assigned the role of client. We opened up our session with Edwin explaining to me that he was having problems at home and was not getting along with his father. Edwin also expressed the need of having to address other issues such as his OCD which he felt was the underlying source of the problem.
I listened intently as Edwin began to relay his story to me in detail, he was very detailed in laying out the turmoils that he has been facing in the recent years since being diagnosed with OCD. Edwin feels that his father has treated him very different since he has found out that Edwin suffers from OCD. Edwin also expressed that he has even become frustrated with himself because of his fear of contracting a germ or a germ related illness from touching people or things.
It was very difficult for me to listen and not show some emotion while listening to someone express such pain and suffering about dealing with something that they have no control over at this point in their life. I tried to give as much assurance, restatements and empathy as I could. I began to ask the client about what was most fearful to him in relation to the negative relationship he shares with his father at this time in hopes that we could get as much insight as possible in order to be better equipped.
As we explored and gained insight it became clearer to us on which areas we needed to focus more on so that the client and I could develop a better working knowledge of areas where changes were needed to be made, insight into action. There were many times that I wanted to jump right in and pull a Mr. fix it but I knew how