Why not build an iphone app to help people with OCD? | Hacker News Reader

Why not build an iphone app to help people with OCD?

3 pointsamichail8 comments

In particular, such an app would help alleviate problems with repeated checking. The user would use the app to take a photo/video of something instead of checking it repeatedly (e.g., you locking the front door).

The photo/video would be tagged with the time and place.

To actually try to cure OCD, one might introduce a probability that the photo/video will not be taken. One can have this probability increase over time as the user's condition improves.

Another possibility is to delete the photo/video automatically after some time interval, which decreases as the user's condition improves.

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How about the "OCDers" take a look at themselves from a 3rd person POV and notice that what they are doing is completely useless and can be stopped at the source: themselves.

There are drugs that can help achieve the different POV perspective, if their minds aren't strong enough to do it themselves.

Seriously. And also true OCD = hospitalization. A lot of people have picked up the term and apply it to themselves when it shouldn't be.

"How about the 'OCDers' take a look at themselves from a 3rd person POV and notice that what they are doing is completely useless and can be stopped at the source: themselves."

People with OCD are well aware of this, but are unable to change it - hence the C in OCD.

No, actually it's the difference between OCD and OCPD (Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder). People with OCD see that their compulsions are irrational; those with OCPD think their compulsions are necessary and rational.

If you didn't notice that the subject was OCD, not OCPD: Pay more attention before you correct people.

If you did notice: Don't start reiterations/agreements with the words 'no, actually' lest it be thought a correction.

I would imagine the act of using the app would itself become an obsession.

Hm. A better idea: every time you do a ritual, you make a pic/vid note of it on your app. The app can collate these into a graph of OCD behaviour by hour/day, etc, perhaps with a twitter feed.

People with OCD are aware of the nature and extent of their problem, so why would this graph help? To detect trends over long periods of time? And if so, why?

I think the idea is that anything that can be measured can be improved.

ocd goes far beyond compulsive checking or cleaning, it includes thoughts of self harm, violence, insanity... basicually any thoughts that one becomes obsessed with and then engages in a series of activities to attempt to alleviate the discomfort associated with the thoughts, (these actions are the compulsive acts).

It can't be cured either but the sufferer can engage in excercises such as Cognitive Behavourial Therapy - these may reproduce well on a pda device or iphone. Taking a photo of oneself would seem to be a new compulsive act, everything I have read suggests not engaging the thought.

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