Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder By Marlene Cooper Summary

Treatment of a Client with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a passage published in the Social Work Research & Abstracts written by Marlene Cooper. In this particular article, Marlene Cooper, discusses the treatment for an obsessive-compulsive disorder patient. Cooper begins by providing a scientific description of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and its usual symptoms upon a client. Then, Cooper goes onto present a specific client used for this particular research project, which was eventually diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder after ineffective treatment interventions, by using the single subject design. Closing her research article, Cooper lays out in detail the intervention used for the specific client, its results, and how it affected alls subjects involved.
In the beginning of this study, obsessive-compulsive disorder is defined “by recurring obsessions, or persistent ideas, thoughts, images, or impulses that are ego dystonic and that invade consciousness, and compulsions, which are repetitive and seemingly purposeful behaviors that are performed according to certain rules or in a stereotyped fashion” (M. Cooper, 1990, p.2). It is estimated
All of the target rituals had been eliminated. The client was extremely pleased with her progress. She had set a date for her wedding, was looking forward to setting up housekeeping with her husband, and was confident in her ability to manage a household. For the first time in years, after three years of unsuccessful psychotherapy, she felt like she was living a normal life]” (Cooper, 1990, p. 7). This case was a very eye-opening and encouraging experience for the therapist, as well as a gateway to new effective treatment possibilities for other clients with OCD. The most important lesson learned was an old social work value: “effective treatment fits the method to the client, and not the client to the method” (Cooper, 1990,