Heuristic Self-Search Inquiry Into One Experience of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Published online on June 29, 2015
Abstract
The experiences of obsessive–compulsive individuals as expressed in first-person accounts have not been adequately explored. In this study, I used the heuristic self-search inquiry (HSSI) method and integral psychology framework to explore the process of self-healing during my encounters with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). In previous heuristic works, researchers reported their thoughts and feelings from inner-dialogue, but the actual internal dialogue was not accessible to the reader. In this study, I self-dialogued my thoughts and feelings in real-time self-to-self conversation in which I was both "I-Researcher" (IR) and "I-Participant" (IP). In this format, the conversation between IR and IP was impromptu and immediately available to the readers of this article. Together, these approaches comprised a unique method for exploring my OCD experiences. The self-dialogue data were autobiographical and collected via informal conversational style, using hand-written notes and without audio recordings. I analyzed data with a dialogic/dialectic approach and with Moustakas’s analytic phases/processes. Interpretations revealed my experience of a curative transformation through reasoned (dialectical) and relational (dialogical) HSSI. The results indicated that my own OCD healing did not depend on corrective actions (as the biomedical model posits), but instead depended on changes in my own contextual existence. These findings suggest that dialogic/dialectic integrated HSSI is a useful tool for researchers, professionals, and people who face OCD daily because the results demonstrated that belief in one’s abilities can flourish in the presence of confusion and despair and can have profound positive effects in the healing process. This research provides a helpful contribution to the therapist-centered literature on OCD by providing a client-based perspective of the disorder and a potential pathway for self-healing.