A four-day treatment helps people get rid of OCD

The gossip came moments after Isabella completed intensive treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder, the Bergen 4-Day Treatment (B4DT). In a recent podcast episode There is no such thing as normal, She shares her OCD story, and reveals how B4DT therapy was the circuit breaker she needed.

Developed in Norway, B4DT was brought to Aotearoa by charity Open closed doorsand the first trial was held in January this year. It’s a hassle for customers, but the results are amazing. International data show that about 90% of patients respond to treatment, and 75% have clinical remission. The results of the initial trial in Aotearoa almost mirrored the international results.

This is a dire need. Around 100,000 New Zealanders are believed to suffer from OCD, a number that promises to reduce the number of closed doors. In New Zealand, the gold standard treatment, exposure and response prevention (ERP), is difficult to access, and the duration of treatment is too long.

The B4DT approach takes the core elements of ERP and condenses them into four consecutive days of intensive, supported exposure work. Patients are taught a set of core skills, and learn to embrace their anxiety, rather than avoid it.

Emma Chapman, clinical lead of the New Zealand B4DT trial, said district health services were beginning to integrate the B4DT model into their offerings, with a wider rollout expected later this year.

“While there is great pride in this movement, there is also deep sympathy for people across the Aotearoa who hear about the cure and feel a strong urgency to access it themselves or themselves,” Chapman said.

The treatment’s co-founder, Norwegian psychologist Dr. Byrne Hansen, traveled to New Zealand to support the initial trial here. She says that one of the key elements of therapy is helping clients change their perception of triggering situations.

“Procedurally you can go slow, intentionally you can’t,” Hanson says.

“You have to decide, am I going to act like it’s dangerous or not? So you can’t really say, ‘Well, yeah, like something,’ that sends the wrong message.”

But Hanson also believes that our perception of how to deal with OCD is wrong.

“I think we’ve confused the field by thinking of it as a medical condition and a disorder,” he says. “These people are not broken, they are really strong and it is really their strength that sustains and fuels this process.”

Hanson went so far as to say that he personally would love to have some skills with OCD.

“If you had a box, and in that box you had something that increased people’s risk and likelihood of OCD, and I could take something, I would take it,” he says. “I’ll just make sure I know when to use it.”

It’s a credit to Gray that his daughter has struggled with severe OCD.

“It literally takes the whole family hostage, but you can see that there’s a certain power underneath all the rituals… it just needs something to turn it into something positive,” he says.

Gray describes the production of this event There is no such thing as normal As an intense emotional process, in part because of the courage she saw in Isabella.

“She’s been through a lot, but her ability to articulate her experience is incredible,” he says. “It really helped me understand my daughter, and I think it will really help others”.

In eight years Isabella’s world was reduced to a period of fear and responsibility: a constant belief that if she was not scrupulously clean, she might pass a disease to a loved one. It was relentless and all-consuming.

“I don’t care if I get sick,” she told Gray before Bergen’s treatment. “I just don’t want to be responsible for someone else getting sick.”

The vivid, intrusive fear created compulsions that took up hours of her day. Sometimes, he slept only a few hours a night. Like many with OCD, she knew her fears were irrational. But logic does little to silence the intensity that creates OCD.

Before the Bergen trial, Isabella had tried many treatments, specialists, and medications—nothing with lasting success. But after four days of intensive treatment, she was able to regain her life.

Two months in Isabella continues to do well.

“I’ve learned that just because I think, doesn’t mean I have to act on them,” she says.

He still needs to take his recovery day by day, but something fundamental has changed. For the first time in years, Isabella is no longer living a life dictated by OCD.

*Name has been changed to protect anonymity.

There is no such thing as normal is one NZ Herald The podcast, hosted by Sonia Gray, is available every Saturday with new episodes.

Made with support from NZ on Air.

You can listen to him iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify Or wherever you get your podcasts from.