New Channel 4 series "Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners"

[Lucy24601]

I wrote this blog:

http://ocduk.healthunlocked.com/blogs/790280/Not-just-cleaning

As a teenager I thought I was going 'insane' because OCD was 'that cleaning thing' wasn't it? If I hadn't found OCD UK when I did I honestly think I would not be alive and well today. A documentary needs to be made focussing on REAL OCD. As someone else already said, people who LIKE obsessively cleaning are more likely to have OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder) as opposed to OCD which causes suffering to the person with it. A few months ago, when I was telling my carers that my OCD was making me think bad things, I got laughed at because they thought it was just cleaning. I ran to my room, grabbed my OCD UK booklet and shoved it in their faces!

[Biccy]

I felt the programme was a misguided load of rubbish, it was upsetting to see how these people saw there OCD and they didn't seem to realise they were passing on such extream ways of cleaning. How can 19 hours of cleaning be good for anyone.

My husband was astounded by it and managed to watch more than I could I was so furious. My friend also a non sufferer said he could not bring himself to watch as he knew what garbage it would be and how's OCD has effected me.

However I did ask my sister today who does not have OCD and she said she got a completely different view from the programme and felt that it ok and would be watching the next one along with a new mop.

Edited February 17, 2013 by Biccy

[Northern Star]

Jo - your comments were heartbreaking - did you send that to them - they might (might) feel shame.

I haven't sent them in but I will if it might help - could someone let me have the contact details please? I expect I'll get the same stock response as everyone else but maybe the sheer volume of upset they have caused people might make them reconsider. I doubt it but I'm willing to try!

I echo the comments people have written on here about the Telegraph article - a truly excellent article. Either the author has personal experience of OCD or he simply has a sheer empathy, compassion and understanding of the illness that the producers, for example, should aspire to.

[Guest OCD-UK RSS]

Last week we published our feedback about the Channel 4 programme, Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners which was broadcast on Wednesday night. Today we hear from one OCD specialist, clinical psychologist, Dr Stephanie Fitzgerald.

Having watched the first episode of Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners I have mixed emotions about the programme but my over-riding feeling is one of sadness. I feel here was a wonderful opportunity to promote awareness and reduce stigma of a debilitating mental health condition, which was not only missed, but instead used to endorse a stereotype that clinicians and sufferers know to be untrue.

Having not been involved in conversations with the production company, it is difficult to comment, but my understanding is that they have stated that there was no intended link to OCD. However, 'obsessions' and 'compulsions' form the diagnostic criteria of OCD, so by calling the programme 'Obsessive Compulsive' cleaners, they are referring directly to the condition, whether this was intentional or not.

View the article on the OCD-UK website

Watched the programme? Please take a moment to complete the OCD-UK programme survey by clicking here.

[Ashley]

Can you please all take a moment to answer these two questions if you have watched the programme - https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ObsessiveCompulsiveCleaners

I have also just published feedback from a clinical psychologists perspective here - http://www.ocduk.org/obsessive-compulsive-cleaner-opinion Paul Salkovskis as also been publicly critical of it via Twitter, and I know he has also written to the Channel 4 disability advisor. Paul also asked them again, (we both asked last week) to confirm the name of the OCD expert they told me they had worked 'closely' with.

Perhaps not my place to say it, but I am slightly annoyed that more OCD specialists and anxiety organisations have stayed so quiet, they must have watched it and should have been as equally appalled as the rest of us. For that reason fair play to Paul and Stephanie for having the balls to be seen to challenge Channel 4.

[Guest legend]

I echo the lack of response from other organisations regarding there views on the plop ch4 showed last week ,in fact im quite astounded they havent spoken

up, one bit at all !

[Guest legend]

i did tweet another charitys views on the programme , ill see if they respond

[Guest orange socks]

i didnt watch it at all to be honest ..... i cant bear watching anything on ocd at all - its bad enough living with it - without watching it too

i'm tempted ,on this occassion to watch it though, after reading the comments on here ......

not sure yet ........ or as it may turn out to be - it's gonna make me mad isnt it - i'll have a look ......

[Guest sarah1984]

Good on Paul and Stephanie! I had a sneaky peak at the OCD Action Forum and the reaction of their members seems to be one of ambivalence. There didn't seem to be much of a discussion going on - I had to scroll back through several pages of more recent posts to find their thread.

[Ashley]

A paragraph from today's ch4 disability advisor response to Paul (they are now seemingly ignoring my last email sent last week). Paul is aware I will be copying this.

it is an accessible features show which, yes, has the power to entertain but also gives viewers (many of whom simply would not have tuned in to a programme billed as a serious mental health documentary) some insight into the lives and experiences of a range of people who, for all sorts of reasons, have developed somewhat extraordinary relationships and anxieties about germs and dirt, possessions and clutter. It is made with warmth and honesty, never judgemental, and far from inviting viewers to point and laugh I believe it provokes empathy and greater understanding, frees up discussion of conditions which can distress and debilitate and which many people are living with. This, I suggest, is a valid route to destigmatizing mental illness. As one of our contributors put it “the more people who have courage and support to talk about their OCD the less ashamed or embarrassed by it people will feel”.

Is that your view of this programme?

They are refusing to name the 'OCD expert' they claimed to have worked closely with, to be expected I guess.

[Guest sarah1984]

I don't think it would give sufferers the courage to talk about their problems - in fact it's much more likely to do the opposite! Especially when you hear feedback from non sufferers who saw the programme and commented that they wished they had OCD because it would give them the kick up the bum to give their house a springclean. One of the people who commented on the Telegraph review page said they wished their cleaner suffered from OCD because OCD sufferers make fantastic cleaners!! The idea that someone could wish OCD on another person is absolutely staggering...I started feeling hopeful when someone commented that OCD sufferers are not all cleaners but this was quickly deflated when they went on to say that some OCD sufferers like to line things up in straight lines as well. I felt it was voyeuristic and encouraged people to roll their eyes and laugh at both the "clean" and "dirty" participants. I also felt the series on hoarders last year was voyeuristic - this impression was reinforced when they decided to show an obsessive compulsive hoarders' Xmas special. My personal suspicion is that their OCD expert doesn't exist.

Sarah

[Lucy24601]

Orange socks it made me pretty mad! It just completely reinforces every stereotype out there about OCD and that it is a cleaning thing. As I am sure many people will agree, I honestly wish it was just a 'cleaning thing' and that I did enjoy it enough to go around clearing out people's clutter! Sadly, like many who have OCD, mine is very different and quite often very frightening. If channel 4 are claiming it could help people with OCD (undiagnosed) that's a joke because as I said, people like myself will see that and not make any link because we don't clean! Thank God for online support groups like OCD UK!

[Guest legend]

"has the power to entertain" I didnt realise that watching people with ocd was supposed entertain, i thought it was to educate and inform..............

Paul savilikis(spelling lol ) tweeted the follwing

The point of c4 OC cleaners? It seems to be inviting us to laugh at & be appalled at both the clean ones and the dirty ones. Shame on them.

i replied with "has undone a lot of awareness raising in my opinion, and totally trivialised how debiltating obsessive compulsive disorder is"

To which he respnded. "Agree! C4 could reasonably be accused of hypocrisy, given what they said during 4 go mad."

So someone in the ch4 h/q arent quite getting it are they. !! when professionals are condoning it , then surely they should sit up and listen

Oh well we can only keep perservering, and keep on raising awareness, depsite this idiotic programme

edit. Would like to also add that in my years of helping on here i have never ever come across such a poor programme about ocd

and to take a ocd sufferer and use there compulsions to benefit others is absolutley beyond belief !!

Edited February 19, 2013 by legend

[Guest sarah1984]

"has the power to entertain" - reminds me of Victorian times when you could pay to watch the patients at the Bethlem asylum! How could watching someone suffer ever be entertaining? Totally agree with Legend and Paul Salkovskis that it totally undoes all the good work achieved last year by the "4 Goes Mad" season - even if I'm still not sure about that title. The programmes on 4 Goes Mad could be classed as serious mental health documentaries and they managed to attract viewers. To be honest, I don't think the programme demonstrated that OCD/obsessions were debilitating or distressing at all - all the participants seemed to thoroughly enjoy cleaning including the lady who had actually been diagnosed with OCD.

Sarah

[Guest legend]

Just been tweeted and another ocd charity will make a statement about the show/or tweetchat about it tomorrow.

[Mel1971]

ash to reply to you - no!! i do not agree with what C4's disability adviser said, utter claptrap - they are having to back track and now (finally) trying not to use the word 'OCD' - I am still appalled at their refusal to understand how much damage theyve done and the scrambling to cover their own a**es by sending out lame messages that seem to shy away from the original premise of the show and why the name was chosen for the programme!!!!!

Misinformed, damaging, hurtful, making fun of a horrible distressing condition, ignorant beyond belief, uncaring - words for channel 4 to mull over..

i am still nearly a week on absolutely stunned that it was aired, i couldnt believe what i was watching..i still cant.

As for the OCD therapist - i believe like Sarah said that he/she never existed.

Edited February 19, 2013 by Mel1971

[Northern Star]

Is that your view of this programme?

Nope. Comments like "people with OCD should be put to use", as well as at the end where the text said, "x is now more fussy than ever about germs" (I think that was the text), and the seemingly interchangeable use of the words "OCD" and "obsessive" completely contradict their email. People without OCD have been horrified by the programme, but there are still so many fools who think OCD is cool, funny or whatever. Programmes like this only add fuel to the fire, when in this supposedly "enlightened" age they should be working to try to reverse the damage of the centuries of mental health stigma.

[Claire1704]

Hi all,

I've had a look on the 4OD website where C4 interviewed some people who took part. I was irritated (but really not surprised) at the lack of understanding from one of the people who made the show. She said that she was diagnosed and received medication and some therapy (although it doesn't state the type of therapy):

"I was told there wasn't a cure but the sessions taught me how to keep it under control"

" I have learned now to live with it and so has my family"

That's the spirit, love - keep fighting it.

I work in an office environment and have been considering 'coming out' about my OCD. I'm not embarassed by it and I'd rather talk about it as a means of increasing other people's understanding of it. But this week, I've been properly put off. If one person's seen this programme, then I'm going to have a fight on my hands to explain what OCD actually is (and just as importantly what it isn't). I now don't think I've got the energy.

[carolj]

Im sad to see its 'Critics Choice' in the Daily Mail this morning!

[Mel1971]

oh dear (about the daily mail)!!

Ofcom have been in touch, a Mr Hall, but it seemed a bit vague about what happens next so we shall see. I did (very politely and nicely!) tell him i am a strong person and have had to be to get help for my daughter and sorting out help and support at school etc so i hope he realises I wont be fobbed off!

[carolj]

Good for you Mel

[Ashley]

Strong assertive letter drafted to CEO and Chair of Channel 4.

[Claire1704]

The brother of one of my colleagues works for the mail on Sunday. My colleage has forwarded our complaint to him. Doubt much will come of it but I said that I felt it was important to have as much recognition as possible.

Claire

[Ashley]

Confirmation the channel 4 disability advisor's response, is to quote her, "the official Channel 4 response". I am escalating my complaint now to the CEO and Chair of Channel 4.

[Ashley]

Earlier brief radio comment about OCC for BBC local radio, hopefully I got it right, had to rush my words as I knew they were running over time, and they had someone on who was going to say it was good OCD awareness, hence why I made the comment it is 'OCD awareness', but I went on to say it was negative awareness.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014mxgm (41 min in)