Face the Fear of OCD and Do It Anyway
We had a brilliant session on Overcoming Teen OCD with Dr Zoe Kindynis earlier this week. Zoe is a senior Clinical Psychologist working within the Maudsley Hospital’s National & Specialist OCD, BDD and Related Disorders Service for young people.
I must confess while I thought I knew a bit about OCD from previous programmes, I’d forgotten that the disorder was given its name for its combination of ‘Obsessions’ - the constant unwanted and intrusive thoughts that a person has, and ‘Compulsions’ the rituals and routines that a person feels compelled to act out.
While OCD is rooted in anxiety, Zoe was quick to reassure us that “OCD is one of the most treatable mental health conditions”. In her wealth of experience in patient facing working, as well training other specialists, Zoe was unequivocal:
“The right treatment for OCD is very clearly Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), but crucially it has to be offered with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)”.
This effective coupling of therapies has the patient confront fears or discomfort related to their obsessional thoughts (exposure), and then resisting performing compulsions (response prevention).
Zoe acknowledges the long waiting times that families have to endure before they can access treatment, and was keen to offer helpful suggestions to parents and carers coping with young people with this condition. The session was abuzz with audience questions, and Zoe listened and responded with great advice, and offered some really helpful resources, including these recommended by the Maudsley:
Zoe also expressed her genuine privilege in having worked with young patients on their full recovery from OCD, even for some who had been incapacitated by it for many months.
We highly recommend watching this episode if you think your young one is having obsessions or a combination of obsessions and compulsions. It might just give you a little food for thought on how you can help them.
Other resources are available via Zoe’s website which you can find HERE.
Next week – Moving Froward with Teen ADHD & Learning Difficulties
It’s all about Teen ADHD and learning difficulties. Neurodiversity is always a subject we receive lots of queries about and I don’t need a crystal ball to predict that this will be a popular session.
Every individual’s experience of ADHD is different, and the road towards diagnosis can be long one as recently discussed by the singer Cat Burns. You can read about her experiences HERE.
Understanding how someone else’s brain works can be confusing but there are now many more resources available to help navigate our way towards greater knowledge. This session is all about help, support and information.
To access it and all of our expert sessions, you can subscribe for just £5 a month. 6 and 12 month memberships are also available at £30 and £50 respectively
A subscription not only gains entry into more than 30 LIVE webinars, but also access to our full on-demand library and you can find out how to subscribe HERE.
Written by Tara Dolby, October 2023