We were delighted that Professor Jack Rachman was able to visit our unit and unveil our installation, the “OCD Bully” on the 9th March 2010. Professor Rachman was based on our unit with Professor Isaac Marks from the late sixties and remains a pioneer in the field of OCD.
People with OCD often consider their OCD to be like a bully or a demon that has to be obeyed. During the process of cognitive behaviour therapy, they may be encouraged to “externalise” their bully and to act against it by doing the opposite to what the bully demands. We decided to enhance the environment at our unit by making a humanoid version of an OCD bully or monster. On the outside of the bully are various manifestations of OCD – for example a clock that represents the wasted time of compulsions; a toilet seat that is full of “germs”; knives for fears of being violent; words such as “Paedophile” and numbers such as “666”. The bully has several eyes to depict the vigilance for threat. A door in its chest opens to reveal a heart of stone. At the base is a broken mirror.
The humanoid has a more important therapeutic role. It holds a transparent receptacle in which residents are encouraged to give up their various “safety objects” to the humanoid as a commitment to change. Safety objects are defined as those that are instrumental to aid safety seeking or avoidance behaviors and therefore maintain a person’s obsessional doubts and fears of causing harm. The installation is interactive and therefore evolves over time as each resident makes a donation of a new safety object. Each donation has it’s own story and provides encouragement for a new resident to change by following the example of previous residents who have made the commitment to change. Initial donations have included a pair of handcuffs that someone used to prevent him being violent to others; rubber gloves and alcohol wet wipes which were used to prevent contact with contaminants; a mobile telephone used for seeking reassurance; a hooded pullover to cover a person’s face and a magnifying mirror and implements for skin-picking in a person with BDD. The receptacle is very long and so it is difficult to retrieve items once they have been deposited. It therefore depicts another aspect of OCD – hoarding. When the receptacle is full, another will replace it so that unit will eventually be full of clutter.
The installation was based on an idea in my head for several years. The idea was developed by staff and patients at our unit and then created by Steve Caplin. He is an award-winning artist and writer www.stevcaplin.com. He is the author of a dozen books including “Dad Stuff”, “How to Cheat in Photoshop” and “Complete and Utter Zebu”, but is best known for his illustration work. He creates satirical photomontage illustrations for a range of national and international magazines and newspapers, including The Guardian, The Independent, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times Magazine, Radio Times, Readers Digest, I’Internazionale, FHM France and many more. Steve Caplin has also been building installations for thirty years, chiefly from found objects and urban detritus. His largest work is a 16-foot working Camera Obscura, located in a garden in Hertfordshire.
What I would really like to do is to commission more figures from Steve depicting different disorders – perhaps a whole family that could go to the Tate! Anyone willing to sponsor a few more?
