Orthodox Compulsive Disorder?

“You see a lot of compulsive behaviors with the intention of undoing something that has been done wrong,” said Dr. Jeff Szymanski, the executive director of the International OCD Foundation. “I have to repeat it until it’s done perfectly.”

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

‘Mr. A” is a 43-year-old chasidic man who is so afraid to make mistakes in his daily prayers that he cannot bring himself to get out of bed until noon or 1 p.m. The reason? Obsessions he’s faced since his days in yeshiva, when he was consistently the last person to finish praying each morning.

“He thought he was just more religious than everyone in the class,” said Dr. Steven Friedman, a professor of clinical psychiatry at SUNY Downstate, who was addressing a group of fellow therapists. “Patients who have religious obsessions often don’t recognize or admit that they have symptoms.”

Friedman was speaking to a group of 30 therapists — at least 20 of them Orthodox Jews — who had gathered for a three-day conference this week at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn sponsored by the Behavior Therapy Training Institute of the International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation. While the Institute holds about three of these meetings annually, this was the first conference tailored specifically to the needs of Orthodox Jewish therapists, who had been unable to attend regular Saturday programming.

Sessions last weekend were largely the same as any other Behavior Therapy Training curriculum, aside from Friedman’s Sunday afternoon lecture about “Religious Scrupulosity,” which targeted obsessions and compulsions rooted in Jewish ritual. In addition to discussing these specific behaviors and treatment techniques, the doctors focused on the unwillingness of many Orthodox Jews to even seek treatment, in a community where mental health issues are somewhat taboo.

“You can speak Yiddish like I do and you’ll still find that that won’t get you access to certain populations,” Friedman said. “Since the community is so small, most of them you know and it’s one degree of separation. If you give me the name of an Orthodox person in the United States, I can find someone who knows something all about them.”

“This is problematic when you do therapy,” he added.

OCD is a genetic disorder that equally affects men, women and children of all backgrounds, typically appearing between the ages of 10 to 12 or in late adolescence or early adulthood, according to the Foundation. On average, OCD inflicts 1 in 100 adults and 1 in 200 kids and teens, amounting to about 2 to 3 million adult cases and 500,000 childhood cases in the United States alone. Because OCD runs in families, there is a 15 percent chance that a patient’s child will also exhibit OCD, though not necessarily in exactly the same form, Friedman explained. For example, he said, a parent might be an incessant hand-washer, while the child might become a compulsive checker.   Continue reading…

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This article was also reposted on the blog FailedMessiah, and has many interesting comments below it.

Also reprinted on VosIzNeias, with additional comments.

The Rebbe’s Relief Effort

Rochi Zarchi, a Chabad emissary in Puerto Rico.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Given the range of duties undertaken by a female Chabad emissary — from teaching Hebrew school to hosting communal holiday meals — leaving her community behind for even a few days is a difficult task. But for two emissaries who joined 4,000 of their sisters here for a convention last week, leaving their homes in the sunny Caribbean was particularly challenging.

When the Jan. 12 earthquake shattered Haiti, Rochi Zarchi of Puerto Rico and Michal Pelman of the Dominican Republic —along with their husbands Shimon and Mendel — immediately sprung into action to assist with the disaster relief effort. Day after day, Zarchi and Pelman prepared kosher food bundles and supply packages to ship to victims and rescue workers in Haiti.

“We’re not on site, especially because every island is its own island. [Haiti] is not a bridge away or a boat ride away,” Zarchi said. “But we did coordinate many different forms of support and food for everyone, as well as kosher provisions for the Jewish relief and Israel division. Seeing what’s been going on there, it’s unbelievable what a disaster can do.”

The Chabad Haiti Relief Fund, under the joint auspices of Chabad Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic and of Puerto Rico, received grants from both the American Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Coalition Disaster Relief that paid for convoys of food, water and medical supplies shipped to Haiti. Zarchi said that she and her husband prepared their contributions and sent them over to the Pelmans in the Dominican Republic, who in turn took care of getting everything to the final destination in Haiti.

Despite the islands’ relatively close proximity, San Juan, Puerto Rico, is still more than 400 miles away from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with an ocean and the Dominican Republic in between.

“It’s frustrating because, of course, you’re limited,” Zarchi said. “But we’re putting in a substantial amount of effort, and my kids feel so proud because their parents are involved. They see all the different Haiti relief funds, and they feel like they’re spearheading an effort.”  Continue reading…

Mumps Spreads To New Communities

by Sharon Udasin

A mumps outbreak in the Orthodox community, which began last summer, has spread beyond Williamsburg and Borough Park to include scattered incidents in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Far Rockaway, Queens, city Health Department officials say.

Far Rockaway pediatrician Dr. Hylton Lightman told The Jewish Week that he has seen about 20 mumps patients, most of them men between 17 and 23, as well as four or five girls and two mothers. Among his patients is a staff member at the Bnot Shulamith Elementary School in Woodmere, L.I.

Of particular concern to some doctors is that the age range of patients — who remain 80 percent male — now includes an older population of young adults, many of whom misplaced their immunization records after graduating high school, according to Dr. Jane Zucker, assistant commissioner for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In the affected communities, 70 percent of children under 18 have received their two immunization dosages, but for young adults statistics remain unclear.

“People who are not vaccinated have a higher rate of complications,” Zucker said. “We want people who don’t know their status to go and get vaccinated.” This week, the Department of Health will host free vaccination clinics in Borough Park and Williamsburg with Jewish organizations.

The total of New York City cases has risen to 909 as of Feb. 8. Outside the city, the state now accounts for a total of 928 cases, with 317 occurring in Rockland County and 611 in Orange County as of Feb. 10, according to State Department of Health Spokesman Tom Allocco.

The most common symptoms of the mumps are fever, muscle aches and parotitis, the signature inflammation of the salivary glands below the ear. Rarer side effects can include meningoencephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and pancreatitis, which can cause abdominal pain and vomiting.

Original version here.