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OCD Awareness Week 2016

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It’s #OCDWEEK! Help raise awareness and understanding about obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and related disorders. Welcome to #OCDWEEK 2016, a week organized by IOCDF to help raise awareness about OCD and related conditions! If you visit IOCDF’s website, you’ll find information about local and online programs and events designed to help increase the general public’s understanding of OCD. When I started this blog a few years ago, the internet was awash in misinformation about the nature of OCD. OCD was (more often than not) described in oversimplified terms, and the popular media largely mischaracterized OCD as a disorder defined primarily on the basis of excessive washing or checking behaviors. If you didn’t fit this mold, it was implied that you didn’t have OCD. I was hoping that, through my writing, I might be able to address some of these...

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Group Therapy for OCD: Power in Numbers

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Group Therapy for OCD Wow. Our first OCD treatment group met yesterday, and IMHO, it was an incredible experience. Thank you to all who attended and showed such courage in standing up to their OCD. I was reminded anew how group therapy for OCD is so different than individual therapy. OCD wants to separate us from others, to shame us, to make us feel hopeless, defective, and guilty… It wants us to define ourselves on the basis of things we can’t control and forget that we are not our thoughts. After all, that’s how it maintains its power over us. Although there is great vulnerability in putting your thoughts out there and saying them aloud in front of others, by doing so, we defy our OCD. OCD lost a few battles yesterday. Let’s keep this war going. For those...

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OCD Treatment Group Using ERP

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OCD Treatment Group! I am pleased to announce the availability of our new exposure and response prevention (ERP)-based treatment group.  The intent of this group is to provide a supportive environment for completing ERPs. Participants wishing to attend are required to register using the links at the bottom of this post. This group will first meet on Saturday (8/10/13), 1pm-3pm.  The fees for attending this group are $75/session or $50/session if you pay in advance and commit to a 4-week group treatment sequence.  Insurance will not be accepted; however, if you have out-of-network benefits, you may be eligible to submit your bill for reimbursement by your insurance company.  Subsequent 2-hour sessions will be held on 8/17, 8/24, and 8/31 @ 1pm. You are free to participate in any or all of these sessions; however, individuals are most likely to...

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What is OCD?

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OCD is a malevolent advisor that wants to deceive us about the fundamental nature of the world. It wants us to believe that the world shouldn’t have any sharp edges and that our experience should be as smooth and snag-free as possible. If snags are apparent, it tells us that we should exchange our current experience for one that is more perfect. Although nice in theory, embracing such a philosophy creates an impossible situation. After all, there is no snag-free world to inhabit. Even the best world is fundamentally flawed. The more we become preoccupied by the pursuit of perfection, the more hyperaware we become of life’s flaws. As Dr. Jon Grayson writes, as soon as we begin comparing anything real to the ideal, the real becomes intolerably cheapened in the comparison. Reality, no matter how good, can never live up...

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Scary Thoughts as Costumes: The Illusion of Danger

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It’s nearly Halloween, and kids around the country are digging through dusty closets and plundering the aisles of local Halloween shops in search of the perfect costume. Halloween is the one night of the year when we give ourselves permission to be silly, scary, or fantastical. We can act a little weird, and nobody will disapprove. On Halloween, it’s normal to see the ghastly holding hands with the divine; fairy princesses walk amongst zombies, lions, and super heroes. There is something thrilling about handing over the reins to your imagination…even if it’s only for a single night. But what would happen if the masks got stuck? What if every goblin remained a goblin and every ghost remained a ghost? The children underneath the make-up would still be our children, but their appearance would remain altered. How would we feel...

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OCD Awareness Week

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The International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) is sponsoring OCD Awareness Week, which means that organizations around the world are hosting special OCD-related events this week. South Floridians, we invite you to join us for our monthly support group meeting tonight (10/9/12) at 6:30pm in our Palm Beach Gardens, Florida office. You might also want to check out some of the amazing OCD Awareness Week events that are hosted online. Please note that the list below is just a sampling of all the incredible events that are going on this week. Feel free to cross-post to Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blog to help spread the word. Happy OCD Awareness Week 2012! List of OCD Awareness Week Events http://www.ocfoundation.org/awarenessweek 2012 Dare to Believe Contest Winners – Listen, read, and watch incredible projects created by talented individuals to promote OCD awareness. http://ocfoundation.org/anighttobelieve/ OCD Film Festival...

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