Mental Health Awareness Week | using Buddhism to help OCD sufferers

Kerstin Han, who graduated last year from the MA in Buddhist Studies, has launched an intervention website for people struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Kerstin developed the self-help website, OCD and Buddhism, as part of her thesis, using Buddhist philosophical principles to help people with OCD.

Her innovative approach guides people in making changes to their lives, potentially overcoming the debilitating effects of the disorder.

The website introduces the teachings of the Cheng Wei Shi Lun, or CWSL – a key scripture of Yogacara-Buddhism, which explains how the human mind works and how an interplay of eight consciousnesses creates our individual version of 'reality.'

Kerstin added: “For some people, it is a pleasant experience – for people struggling with OCD, it can be a nightmare. The good news is, as 'reality' is just a product of our own mind; we can actually learn to create a more positive reality for ourselves.”

The website includes articles on the teachings of CWSL, how it explains OCD; how obsessions arise and the mental processes involved, as well as guided meditations designed specifically for people with OCD that aim to help them work through their anxiety.

Kerstin first experienced an OCD episode at the age of 10, after her grandma died. She said: “I remember that suddenly there was this strange thought in my head: could it be that Grandma might not have gotten terminally ill, if only I had worn a different hairband?

“Though my mum reassured me that grandma's illness had nothing to do with anything I did, and I knew that the whole idea was absurd, the thoughts kept coming back. I started compulsively pressing the light switch to make them go away.

“As I grew older, the content of my obsessive thoughts – and my compulsions – varied. Sometimes I had to repeatedly press the light switch, or take a fixed number of steps back, to ‘neutralise’ something, or double-triple-quadruple check the stove before I go out.

“For a long time, although this was annoying, it did not reach a degree where it would have really kept me from living my life. The good thing was that at school or work, my brain was kept so busy that the OCD was suppressed, and so it mostly affected me only in my free time, when no one would notice it. By the time, I knew that what I was experiencing was called OCD, but as it was only mild to moderate, I didn't bother to get therapy at that point.”

After moving to China in 2017, to follow her dream and study the practice of Yogacara-Buddhism in Xi’an, Kerstin experienced a traumatic incident that made her OCD much worse.

The apartment compound she lived in was surrounded by high-rise buildings, with hidden ventilation shafts that were unsecured. Her cat fell into one of these shafts, and it took Kerstin a day and a night to find him and get him out. Then a few months later, a stray kitten fell into an even deeper shaft, and after 48 hours of several neighbours helping, he was eventually saved.

Kerstin and her neighbours secured the shafts in the short-term with wire mesh and cable ties, but, knowing that they were life-threatening for children and animals, she was then left with ‘severe checking’ OCD, and felt an enormous responsibility to repeatedly make sure that the wire mesh was still in place. This was extremely time-consuming and caused her a great deal of emotional stress.

Kerstin then decided to do something about her OCD, and after learning more about how CWSL could help people, she made it the focus of her dissertation project, which has led to her self-help programme.

She added: “During my time working abroad, I became painfully aware that access to therapy for OCD is actually a luxury in many parts of the world, so I wanted to create something that was helpful and freely accessible to all who struggle with OCD.”

“Studying Buddhist psychology has helped me to take back my life. After a lot of work, I now feel good again, and I hope that my self-help programme can help other OCD sufferers to alleviate their symptoms and take back their lives.”