Obsessed returns for its second season on A&E on Monday, June 28, 2010, following the season nine premiere of Intervention. The non-fiction series address real life problems faced by people with anxiety disorders. Dr. Shana Doronn is one of the therapists that treats patients with severe anxiety disorders on Obsessed. Dr. Doronn recently took time to discuss anxiety conditions and the A&E series Obsessed.
Anxiety Disorder and Fear
Whatever people fear – when you push further you realize there is some kind of core problem,. The core fear may be fear of being unloved, dying alone, being made fun of or another type of core fear.
Fear comes from a message that there is danger, a fight or flight response. The person with an anxiety disorder perceives even minor threats as highly dangerous. Dr. Doronn described the crippling fear of always feeling that there is a gun being held to the temple.
Season Premiere of Obsessed on A&E
In the season premiere of Obsessed, Dr. Doronn treats a woman with a serious fear of getting fat. She is a wife and mother, but she spends her days walking on a treadmill and exercising instead of spending time with her family. Her compulsion robs her life of the joy she could have, as she literally spends her days on a treadmill. Her husband fears that he will lose his wife to an early death if she does not change her habits.
Dr. Doronn patiently works with the patient at the patient's home, compassionately guiding her to limit her time on the treadmill and to eat properly. In her work with the patient, the doctor also spends time with the family. In the end, the patient successfully reaches her goal to get off of the treadmill long enough to go camping with her appreciative family.
Dr. Doronn Question and Answer
Question: What are the goals of the series Obsessed?
Dr. Doronn: The goal is to document process of treatment and to show that treatment can work. You can see the process at beginning, go through the process and can experience the end goal. You get to see what treatment really looks like – with a lot of compassion.
Question: In Obsessed, the doctor goes to the patient's home and spends a lot of time with the patient and the patient's family. How typical is it for doctors to go to patient's homes to treat for the disorder
Dr. Doronn: Going to patient's homes is not common enough. In social work it makes sense to go to their home. Not many people could afford to have therapists at their home. It is not glamorous work - it is down and dirty, but we have been trained to do it. Mild OCD can be effectively treated with office visits.
Question: What does treatment feel like for the patient?
Dr. Doronn: Treatment feels like hell. In the case of the woman in the season premiere, she was spending hours on the treadmill because of her fear of getting fat. The thing was, her miles on the treadmill were not efficient miles because of the way she was doing it. She could have gotten the results of exercise with a half hour on the treadmill. In this case, exercise on the treadmill had nothing to do with fitness, she was soothing anxiety with exercise.
Question: How successful is the treatment seen on Obsessed?
Dr. Doronn: According to UCLA the treatment reduces symptoms by 50% with six weeks of treatment, but, if patients do not continue treatment they will not get better. Patients need to continue with therapy. OCD can morph into a different fear. OCD a doubting disorder and can manifest into a different category of anxiety.
People want certainty that nothing bad is going to happen to them, but there is no guarantee for anyone. People need to learn live with doubt. With the anxiety disorder, the fear of uncertainty is exacerbated ten fold.. The fear is exacerbated, whether is is fear of dying or mentally ill.
Flooding is proven to work for anxiety disorders. Purposeful exposures force the patient to face fears at lower levels. They feel the anxiety and learn that it is not so bad.
When the person with an anxiety disorder has a panic attack they become exhausted and anxiety comes down. The fear still exists. They need to face the fear until the fear no longer evokes the response. You cannot control anxious thoughts and compulsion. The brain doesn't work like that. I know that if I go on vacation I have to face fear of going on plane – it doesn't mean that I cave to the fear. You cannot stop living.
Obsessed follows the Emmy Award winning series about addiction, Intervention. New episodes of Obsessed debut on Monday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET on A&E.
