A review by alizamiriam
The Man Who Couldn't Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought by David Adam

hopeful informative fast-paced

4.0

I sent this book to my parents six months ago and it really helped them understand my experiences much better, recognize that for me OCD is a serious issue which requires support, and to provide me with some of that support and encouragement. Information wasn’t earth-shattering to me, but a well-written and useful primer on history of OCD, what it is and is not, touches on problems and pitfalls of diagnostic categories and medicalization. Really brave and instructive anecdotes of the author’s own experience living with OCD and his treatment woven throughout that were helpful to my family. In general I wish this book spent more time discussing ERP, so downrating it a but for that. I read this book less to better understand myself but more to better understand how to speak about this with people in my life who don’t experience OCD,  and to try and understand how they understand and learn about this admittedly very confusing and difficult to understand experience from the outside.