Feel My Thoughts - Shaping OCD Beings

What if an individual could express their unique experience of their OCD condition, its characteristics and the role it plays in their life – both personally and for others to better understand it?

‘Feel My Thoughts’ - “Shaping  OCD Beings” is a dialogue toolkit that aims to facilitate a new kind of conversation and reflection around OCD by building a physical object that represents one’s OCD. The tool is designed for two people. One reflecting on their OCD and one facilitating the conversation through the use of ‘What if’ questions. It is built up of three different steps that enables the participants to slowly build their conversation, by interacting with materials and taking the conversation to a level of how they feel and see themselves in regard to their OCD. The task becomes about confronting one’s feelings on their OCD and through this exercise communicating to others what it feels like and bring them closer to an understanding of it through a physical object. The dialogue tool is made of clay and other materials and comes along with supporting questions.

Through materializing the OCD into a physical form and using metaphors instead of direct words to describe it, it is easier for us to understand that an individual with OCD sees their OCD as something that is both a part of them and a force of its own that they cannot always be controlled. By talking about OCD in metaphors and as an external force, one acknowledges that the OCD has an agency of its own. Sometimes it is easier to reflect on something that is not you. It can become something you can walk around and analyse.