User talk:Frank DeFulgentis

Frank DeFulgentis is a psychology student at Columbia College in Orlando, FL. He authored a bold new look at OCD in his book, Flux published in 2009. He was diagnosed with OCD 17 years prior to the publication. The main agenda behind the book was to provide an entirely new outlook as to the causes and possible treatments of OCD, from a first-person perspective (rather than the usual 3rd-person clinically-detached perspective). DeFulgentis claimed that clinicians simply 'drop the ball' when it comes to explaining and treating it. Furthermore, he believed that the 'ocd population' would have to step-up in a community type-fashion in order to find real resolutions. Given the private nature of OCD and the difficulties in expressing it, he felt that there was no way possible for (non-ocd) clinicians to ever probe deep enough in others to understand it. Rather, he said that when people with OCD try to 'objectively' understand their confusions they fall victim to "the cognitive maze" (Tolman's idea of the cognitive map expanded). The lack of certainty in whether or not they are objectively making sense fuels the proneness to uncertainty.

He believes that OCD ultimately stems from a lack of tension and 'emotional completeness' (similiar to Pierre's Janets theory of psychasthenia). In his book he connects key points made from several different theories including: psychoanalysis, gestalt psychology (and it's descendent NLP), memetics, and cybernetics (the cybernetic model OCD). "Sub-communication" was the most elusive concept to those with OCD, he claimed. Together sub-communication and tension can resolve the persistent 'uncertainty of danger' that people with OCD experience. He alluded to Gerald Nierenberg and Henry Celero and the more modern work of David DeAngelo and Tyler Durden as being superb models of sub-communication and the understanding of tension.

His writing is a representation of the first new approach to OCD to be published in years (and perhaps the most original). He fearlessly set out to explore and put his ideas to the test through the-first-person, and his writing is a testament to what he felt actually worked and what didn't. Much of his work can be understood by those who suffer from OCD. His ideas hold their own, despite some of their obscure origins. He runs an OCD support group in Orlando, Florida, and the ideas have already begun to show some positive results. Within the next year or so his book will likely become widely recognized as the study of OCD 'in the 21st century.' Frank DeFulgentis (talk) 13:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)