OCD Related Content

Everything You Need To Know About Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy

Obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, is a serious condition that can disrupt someone’s daily life. It is marked by obsessions, or unwanted intrusive thoughts, and physical or mental actions taken to relieve anxiety associated with the obsessions. Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy is...

Video: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy To Help Treat OCD

The good news about obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is that it’s highly treatable with evidence-based approaches such as cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and exposure and response prevention (ERP). Unfortunately, these treatments can be especially challenging since they often require patients to...

Video: Anxiety in Kids and Teens 101

Experiencing anxiety is a natural part of growing up, and there’s no question that kids and teens face many very real reasons to feel anxious. Typically, they learn to navigate those feelings. But when anxiety persists and becomes seemingly unmanageable, it can impact schoolwork, relationships, and...

Video: When Parting With Possessions Becomes Problematic

Most everyone knows what it’s like to struggle with getting rid of one thing or another. It can be hard for any of us to part with an old photo album or perhaps a favorite sweater or book. But what if discarding items as trivial as newspapers and junk mail caused you great distress? And what if that...

Video: When Perfect Becomes Problematic: Perfectionism and More

Children grow up with all kinds of incentives to strive for perfection—from the encouragement of adults to the recognition and personal pride that can follow great achievement. There’s no question that this drive often serves kids and teens well. But, taken too far, it can also create serious mental...

Everything You Need To Know About OCD

We all experience anxiety, a feeling of dread that happens to be your body’s natural response to stress. It may be brought on by a variety of circumstances, including making an important decision, an upcoming test, or meeting someone new. If someone is living with an anxiety disorder like OCD, these...

What Is Sexual Orientation OCD?

Sexual identity is an important part of how we view ourselves. Most people have little trouble knowing who they find attractive. This may not always be easy, of course. Varying factors, like religion, community values, social fears, etc., may create obstacles for someone trying to actualize their...

Video: What Is Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy?

When someone is struggling with an anxiety disorder or OCD, exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP) is considered the best way to treat these disorders. McLean’s Abigail Stark, PhD, explains ERP so anyone can understand it and helps us know when this treatment might be best for a child or...

Understanding OCD and Religious Scrupulosity

When people have religious scrupulosity, one form of obsessive compulsive disorder, they experience significant doubt, anxiety, and distress about their moral beliefs or religious practices. For example, people who have scrupulosity may worry if they are performing the rites, observations, prayers...

Everything You Need To Know About Hoarding Disorder

Hoarding disorder is a mental health condition characterized by saving items that appear to have little or no worth, often accumulating magazines, mail, newspapers, and old clothing. Between reality TV shows and common misconceptions about the condition, hoarding disorder is deeply misunderstood by...

Everything You Need To Know About OCD in Kids and Teens

While working on a project together, you see a friend packing up their work supplies in a very neat fashion. You can’t help but point out that they’ve organized all their pens to be lined up in order of color and all facing the same direction in their box. “Oh,” they reply. “That’s just my OCD.”...

McLean Hospital’s TMS Program Expands Access to Mental Health Treatment

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is quickly becoming an important treatment option for severe, treatment-resistant depression and other mental health disorders. McLean Hospital’s accelerated TMS program makes it more accessible for patients who have restricted schedules. Under the leadership...

Video: OCD or an Anxiety Disorder? Getting the Diagnosis Right

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) manifests in all kinds of ways—from checking and counting to ruminating and handwashing. And while OCD is often thought of as an anxiety disorder, diagnostically speaking, it is something distinct. Understanding all this can be tricky, to be sure. But it’s also...

Anxiety and OCD Course Advises on Supporting Kids and Teens

On March 21, 2024, McLean Hospital hosted Anxiety and OCD in Kids and Teens, a course aimed at health care professionals, educators, and parents. Experts Lisa W. Coyne, PhD, Fairlee C. Fabrett, PhD, and Jeff Szymanski, PhD, weighed in on topics including the fundamentals of anxiety and OCD, how...