My wife suffers from panic attacks, anxiety, depression, OCD and medical phobias. These issues have been going on for over a decade with no resolution in sight. The problems seemed to start just after a death in the family, and the anxiety just escalated from there until it turned into debilitating OCD, depression etc.

The largest obstacle to overcome seems to be the medical phobia. Because of this phobia I can't get her to seek treatment, so one thing just escalates into another. At this point she barely speaks to people, doesn't watch television or read etc. This is because any word she associates with medicine sends her into an uncontrollable panic. The words don't have to be medical - she just has to be able to draw some sort of correlation – for instance, hospitality, sounds like hospital.

I've been researching healing with sound, music therapy and guided imagery. The one thing she will do is listen to music without words (since there aren't words to upset her).

Can you suggest anything that might help such an extreme case? She refuses treatment (because of her phobias) so I basically need something that will relax her and calm the fears without her thinking of it as treatment.

Basically, I need a stepping stone - something to get us past the first step so that maybe she'll eventually be more open to treatment, if only we can calm the medical phobia.

Do you have any CD's that might be appropriate? Or anything else? Thanks so much!

Harried Harry

Dear H.H.,

For starters (but only starters), the short answer is yes, we do have a CD for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and another for Panic Attacks, and yet another for Depression, but in your wife’s case, I suspect that they’ll only be somewhat helpful.  Her condition is too severe and it’s been allowed to go on for too long.

I know this is going to sound cruel to you, but please hear me out.   OCD gets worse when it’s accommodated.  It spreads, gets more generalized, more intense, more frequent and more debilitating if it’s allowed to go on.  In fact, you’re describing this metastasis perfectly when you say it used to be the word “hospital” that would set off her panic; now it’s even a derivative word like “hospitality”.   

There is ample clinical evidence and research showing that tiptoeing around OCD limitations is tantamount to dooming the OCD sufferer to get worse. In fact, a brand new study just hit the Pubmed database this week, saying this very same thing about pediatric OCD – when the family accommodates the symptoms, the symptoms stick or worsen, even in spite of treatment. (That citation, if you’re interested, is Merlo LJ, Lehmkuhl HD, Geffken GR, Storch EA.  Decreased family accommodation associated with improved therapy outcome in pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology. 2009 Apr;77 (2):355-60.)

You’re being held hostage by her distress, Harry, and the only way to help her is to liberate yourself and get some help for both of you. It will take a strong stomach, because her initial terror will be hard for you to take.  You need to either find an OCD specialist who knows effective tried and true behavioral techniques, with access to medication, and bring her there with or without her compliance, possibly with the help of a relaxation CD (or they can come to the house - they're used to dealing with phobias); or else pick up Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Dr. Jonathan Grayson for some preliminary coaching and help with understanding why you need to interrupt this co-dependent response.  It’s a terrific book – he’s run a successful program for OCD sufferers for years, and it works because, to use a vivid Adlerian phrase, it “spits in the soup” of the sufferer and breaks the cycle.  She may need to be hospitalized for a few weeks, but it will be worth it.

I hope you can do this.  I know it will be difficult, but you're the one in the pivotal position with sufficient leverage to help her break the cycle.

Let me know how it goes.

All best,

Belleruth

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