McLean Hospital Offering Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Services in Houston

August 9, 2021

McLean Hospital, consistently ranked the #1 freestanding hospital for psychiatric care in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, has partnered with the Houston OCD Program, a national leader in the field of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) treatment.

The McLean OCD Institute at Houston marks the expansion of McLean’s highly acclaimed OCD Institute (OCDI), which was the first of its kind when it opened more than 20 years ago on the hospital’s Belmont, Massachusetts, campus. The merger brings together two organizations with outstanding reputations to provide proven OCD services to more children, adolescents, and adults.

Elizabeth McIngvale, PhD, LCSW, a world-renowned expert on OCD and founder of Peace of Mind, a nonprofit organization that was recently acquired by the International OCD Foundation, is the program director of the McLean OCD Institute at Houston.

Yellow residential building

McLean OCD Institute at Houston

The McLean OCD Institute at Houston has four care tracks: a residential support program and a partial hospitalization program for adults, an intensive outpatient program for adolescents, and outpatient services for all ages.

“Much of the spirit of the original setting has carried over to the McLean OCD Institute at Houston,” noted program founder Thröstur Björgvinsson, PhD, ABPP.

“It really is a place where we focus on creating a compassionate environment,” he said. “We take the most effective evidence-based treatment we know exists, adjust it to the individual, and provide a space where they can engage with treatment.”

McLean Hospital cares for hundreds of patients each year who live with symptoms of OCD. “To have McLean—an institution that’s ranked number one consistently year after year for mental health care—coming to town is something not only that I’m excited about but that our community also needs,” said McIngvale.

“There’s such a vast need for mental health care as well as a need for effective evidence-based, compassionate care—and to get that with McLean is just so exciting for Houston.”

McIngvale was once a patient who received treatment for OCD. As someone who has walked the path from patient to clinician, she values research immensely.

“As somebody who has been a patient and spent many years going to clinicians who were not focused on research, I found, in the end, it’s a disservice to patients to take that approach,” she said.

“It’s so important to provide evidence-based care: care we know works and that we know is grounded in science and in research. To have the McLean name and of course, with that, the Harvard Medical School name—to know we will be a part of top-quality research that will directly impact the clinical care we provide at the McLean OCD Institute at Houston—is incredible.”

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