Josh Williams Case Study

Anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder have been part of Josh’s life since he was 3 or 4 years old. Josh Williams is 39 years old now and he never knew life without any of his issues, it’s just the part of who he is. For many years, especially in adolescence, his life was unbearable. He thought about suicide on a daily basis, injured himself with razors, and even became agoraphobic. But, Josh managed somehow to see bright part of the life. He enjoys in shopping, movies and food. Moreover, he has a beautiful son and wonderful wife. He also has multiple friends and wonderful parents. Medication and therapy helped him to manage his issues, but he is not completely free of his symptoms. Sometimes they return, but in a lesser degree. …show more content…
He feels compelled to repeat certain activites when they become associated with a blasphemous thougts. In Josh’s case, these include getting up and down from a chair, going in and out of door, or placing and replacing an object. The main focus is his concern that the activity had been fouled by a negative religious thougt and that this pairing constitiues a sin that needs to be addressed. This leads him to repeat the activity until is completed without a negative thought. Some of the times, Josh feels compelled to perform several repetitions of the behavior without a negative thought in order to make-up for that exsisting bad thought. Besides negative nature of the ROCD, these repeating rituals can have a positive nature too. For instance, Josh has thoughts of religious figures when perforimng certain behaviors that he believes should not be associated with religious thoughts. In these circumstances, he feels compelled to repeat an action such as sitting on the certain chair in his house over and over again until he is able to complete it without an accompanying positive religious …show more content…
Josh somehow managaed to go through the high school, collage and graduate school. During this period of time, while he was trying to get his education, he went through a lot of pain and suffer. His psychologist Luka Stanivukovic that was specialized in anxiety disorder stayed with him over a period of ten years. They’ve been applying cognitive behavioral therapy, medications and exposure therapy. Perhaps, the reason why Josh managed to succed in his fight is because he developed such a strong friendship with his psychologists. Josh believed Dr. Stanivukovic fully and tried to do whatever he was asked to do in order to win this fight. Josh would be placed in terrifying situations and then be asked to evaluate his thinking patterns. Over the time, Josh was able to start going out to public places. He also decreased his cleaning/washing rituals, as well as his religious thoughts that were bothering him all the time. Josh continued to take his medications such as Prozac, Zoloft and Klonopin together with vitamin