The Upside of OCD: Flip the Script to Reclaim Your Life

(Hardback)

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Many OCD sufferers fail to improve using the standard exposure-response prevention (ERP) treatment. But, as clinical psychologist Michael Alce contends, its not the patients who are failing the treatment, but rather the treatment that is failing the patients.
Using vivid case examples, practical exercises, personal anecdotes, and inspiring stories, The Upside of OCD shows sufferers and therapists the creative powers that allow OCD sufferers to see the world with such unique depth, feeling, and intensity.

Reviews

If OCD impacts your life in some way, then this book is a must-read. Bringing together evidence-based research with impactful and often personal stories, Alce invites us to fundamentally rethink the nature and approaches to OCD. Everyone with OCD should have a wise, insightful champion like Alce. -- Wendy K. Smith, Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management, University of Delaware
It's about time somebody brought the human being back into OCD. In this readable and entertaining book, Michael Alce has put the suffering person at the center of the complex phenomenon we have simplistically reified as OCD. His chatty, personal writing style has a serious, scholarly intent. Pitched directly to sufferers, the book reframes, with creativity and verve, the nature, function, and meaning of their symptoms. I recommend it to anyone who has struggled with ruminative thoughts and mandatory actions and also to anyone interested in a refreshingly new exploration of obsessive and compulsive psychology. -- Nancy McWilliams, PhD, ABPP, Emerita Visiting Professor, Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology
This book is a love letter to OCD sufferers. Offering added depth to the exploration of the OCD experience, The Upside of OCD makes a great companion to evidence-based treatments like ACT and ERP. -- Jill Stoddard, PhD, director of The Center for Stress and Anxiety Management and author of Be Mighty: A Womans Guide to Liberation from Anxiety, Worry, and Stress Using Mindfulness and Acceptance
Far from a trite treatise on what it means to have OCD, psychologist Michael Alce offers a deeply wise and compassionate voice for people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) as well as for OCD, itself. Rather than simply seeing OCD as sound and fury, signifying nothing, Alce explains that there is meaning to be found, hidden powers to reclaim. An indispensable book for anyone struggling with OCD, or who loves someone struggling with OCD. -- Yael Schonbrun, author of Work, Parent, Thrive and clinical psychologist and faculty at Brown University
Michael Alcee's intriguing exploration of OCD's gifts offers a new perspective on a disorder often simplistically treated as uniformly negative. The Upside of OCD is a provocative read in the best sense and a welcome addition to a growing literature on thriving in an age of flux and angst. -- Maggie Jackson, award-winning author of Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure and Distracted
Drawing upon his extensive clinical experience and scientific research as well as his musical creativity, Dr. Michael Alce has written a most unique and highly compelling re-examination of obsessive-compulsive disorder, exploring not only the burdens of this state of mind but, also, its potential benefits. A hugely clever reframing of this aspect of human psychology, I warmly recommend this book to fellow mental health professionals and, indeed, to all members of the general public! -- Brett Kahr, senior fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London; visiting professor of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health at Regents University London; and honorary director of research at the Freud Museum London

Author Bio

Michael Alce, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Tarrytown, NY, and mental health educator at the Manhattan School of Music. He is the author of Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist and 2019 winner of the American Psychological Associations Division 39 Schillinger Memorial Award. Alce has been a TEDx speaker and organizer and regular contributor at Psychology Today along with contributions to NPR, The Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times, among others.