Contamination OCD – Long Shower Exposures
Long shower times? Just a quick announcement… I’m pleased to announce that with our recent office renovations, we now have a spa-like therapeutic shower room that is perfect for individuals with contamination OCD who have excessively long shower times. This room is ideal for those with contamination OCD who wish to work on shower-based response prevention. For individuals with contamination OCD who take really long showers, we are now able to provide office-based interventions for reducing your long shower times. We’ve had great success with reducing our patients long shower times from multiple hours to a mere 10-15 minutes. Reduce Long Shower Times to Short OCD Shower Times We do this first by developing shower-based response prevention guidelines and modeling non-OCD based shower behavior in-session. We essentially use a shower script to help individuals identify normal shower routines (which,...
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Imaginal Exposure vs. In Vivo Exposure for OCD
As I’ve talked about in numerous posts, overcoming OCD involves learning to co-exist with doubt and uncertainty. This idea can be a bit counter-intuitive at first, as many people initially expect OCD treatment to reduce uncertainty. One therapeutic approach that helps with this process is exposure and response prevention (ERP) for OCD. Not surprisingly, ERP consists of two parts: 1) exposure, and 2) response prevention. An exposure is when you do something on purpose to provoke an anxiety spike. By definition, exposures are not accidental; rather, they are pre-planned, deliberate offensive strikes against your OCD. Exposures are designed to help you build up your tolerance to fear-producing situations. Exposures are often completed according to an exposure hierarchy, meaning that people typically complete lower level exposures (i.e., less distressing exposures) before gradually working up to higher level ones. Response prevention...
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OCD Awareness Week 2016
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
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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Teen Social Anxiety Group (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy/Group Therapy)
Teens with social anxiety unite! In this paid treatment group, teens will support each other in developing cognitive behavioral skills to combat social anxiety. This workshop will be interactive and fun. Note: If you are an adult with social anxiety, there’s a group for you coming soon! If you’re interested, please call our office or reply to this email so that we can better gauge demand for an adult social anxiety group. With the new school year quickly approaching, there is no better time to work on tackling your social anxiety. The intent of this group is to provide a supportive environment for developing cognitive behavioral skills and completing exposures. Because social anxiety can co-occur with other types of anxiety, you do not need a social anxiety diagnosis to benefit from this group. In some cases, this group may...
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Dr. Steven Seay is a licensed psychologist in Florida & Missouri. He is the Director of the Center for Psychological & Behavioral Science and provides treatment & therapy throughout South Florida, including Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Fort Lauderdale, & Miami.
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