I think the world is probably split into pro- and anti-hair dryerism, both among people who do and don't have OCD.
>First, giving into compulsions just legitimizes them and reinforces the patterns that are central to OCD and can ultimately make things worse.
Of course, but that's the whole crux of this story: "She’d seen countless psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors, she’d done all sorts of therapy, she’d taken every medication in the book, and none of them had helped." It's paved over for conciseness, but I think it's implied that what you said is definitely not news to the patient.
Of course the first, second, third, and fifteenth thing you should and must try is what you say. I'm sure Scott would agree. This was a Hail Mary when every attempt to do that so far failed.
To give another example: I think ECT is terrible. But if nothing else has remotely helped someone with severe depression over a very long period of time and they hate every waking moment and are close to suicide? Throw that brain in a Tesla coil, I say. Another facet of hair dryerism would be stances on body identity integrity disorder. I won't write at length, but I think anyone can guess my position on it.
>Secondly, OCD has a habit of changing how it manifests.
Yes, this was my first thought, but I think that's also part of this parable, too. It likely will manifest in other ways for the patient, but this is a simple hack that actually helped resolve one immediate issue that was causing her a lot of difficulties at that time.
Some of the other issues will probably cause less severe of a life impact. There's a decent chance some won't, since it could be something thing like an oven, but the point is that this was one method to immediately address one pressing problem that was heavily affecting her life. Obviously you wouldn't just say "okay, you're fine now" and tell her to never come back; this would just be a stopgap while the patient is further treated.
On the topic of OCD, one thing that surprisingly helped me a lot and continues to help me came from what I believe was a random reddit or perhaps HN comment I happened to stumble across a few years ago. It was a short sentence from someone quoting their psychiatrist - essentially a suggestion of a different way of mentally framing things. It actually was "one weird trick" that really did immediately work in my case.
I think it was the precise phrasing of it that helped me, so I don't want to try to roughly paraphrase it from memory, but it definitely made it clear that while OCD is certainly a neurological problem, psychological techniques can help guide your neurology, like the proverbial elephant rider prodding the elephant a bit in one direction or another. Hopefully something like that, or perhaps something entirely different, will help this patient so they don't need to take their hairdryer with them anymore.