Cognitive-behavioral treatment of obsessive reading of car license-plates

The following case study reports the cognitive-behavioral treatment of a 37 -year-old patient with obsessive reading of car license-plates and therefro m deduced self-pejorative associations. These obsessive self-depreciating a ssociations to license-plates are regarded as a form of neutralization of a ggressive intrusive thoughts. The standardized procedure by Lakatos and Rei necker [1999] was extended by an exposure to the neutralizing obsessions. T he reason for this was to adapt a form of response prevention to the neutra lizing obsessions. This exposure consisted of a confrontation with the obse ssions by forced production and a conditioning of neutral associations to t he license-plates instead of the self-pejorative neutralizing obsessions. T hese successful interventions are described and discussed.