A common figure for the dropout rate of exposure and response prevention (ERP) for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder is about 25%. During one OCD workshop I attended, 2 different presenters insinuated that these high rates of dropout were the result of one [...]
Much of what drives people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a fear of uncertainty. People with OCD may engage in frequent and/or time consuming rituals in order to ward off a feared outcome, no matter how remote the chance. As [...]
Greater Research Support for Behavior Therapy over Medication Trichotillomania (or trich for short) is a condition in which people repeatedly pull out their body hair, often leading to bald patches and thinning. The scalp is a common site—as are eyebrows [...]
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a serious and disabling problem for many people. Understandably, many people seek out medication to help with this problem, and research is shown that medication can be helpful some people. However, research is also very clear [...]
I resonated with a recent article in Psychology Today about the difficulties people have in finding therapists who offer effective treatment. The authors Dean McKay and Scott Lilienfeld—especially Dr. Lilienfeld—have been extremely active in promoting science-based psychotherapies. As an example, [...]
Although OCD is commonly used to describe someone who is overly tidy, this stereotype doesn’t capture the common struggles of someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Perhaps as a consequence of stereotypes such as this, many people with OCD suffer for years [...]
In a previous post, I linked to a blog post about therapist reluctance to use exposure therapy. Exposure therapy is one of the most effective interventions for anxiety-related problems but, sadly, remains under-utilized by clinicians. It is an intervention that has been a major [...]
Eric Morris, PhD, a psychologist in Australia, wrote a really interesting blog post about therapist reluctance to use exposure. As I’ve written about in previous posts, exposure therapy is one of the most effective interventions we have in treating anxiety-related disorders, such [...]
In a special issue of Behavior Therapy on “The Theory-Practice Gap in Cognitive Behavior Therapy,” Jonathan Abramowitz, PhD, authored an interesting paper on the importance of understanding theory when doing exposure therapy. Dr. Abramowitz is a well-respected OCD researcher, and I was attracted to this [...]
This post was featured on our client-centered blog The Art and Science of Living Well, but I thought it would be of interest to therapists as well. The post is about a finding from a meta-analysis by Cuipjers and colleagues that looked [...]