OCD is Not What You Think
What's wrong with saying, "I'm so OCD"? The hypothesis is that when people who have untreated OCD hear other people misuse the name of their disorder, it discourages them from seeking treatment.
#FaceYourFear: Transform your triggers to win
With practice, you can learn to transform your OCD triggers into opportunities where you can #faceyourfear and win.
Turn “I have to” into “I want to”
Words have power, and changing "I have to" to "I want to" can be tremendously empowering.
Ruby Campbell’s Gift to the OCD Community
As we celebrate OCD Awareness Week (#OCDweek), October 13 -19, 2019, let’s keep the memory of Ruby Campbell alive by remembering her [...]
Are You Handcuffed to Your Devices, and Is OCD at Fault?
In an effort to stop rushing around the way Emmy Rossum elegantly captures in her song “Slow Me Down," a little over a month ago I took both The Focus Course and The Margin Course. I wanted to learn how to make better progress on important projects with less racing around and more breathing room. Assignments in both courses asked me to identify distractions that interfered with my ability to focus. I came up with a list of 11 types, including email, my phone, my Fitbit, social media and even OCD...
Q&A for Interrupting OCD’s Mental Rituals with “May or May Not”
Here are the questions submitted about my blog Interrupt OCD’s Mental Rituals with “May or May Not” (MOMN) and my answers.
The Unintended Consequences of Saying OCD Can Be Cured
Realistic expectations of recovery are so important for the well-being of people with OCD. Because if people with OCD have unrealistic expectations they cannot achieve, they are incredibly likely to beat themselves up, which hurts them and their recoveries. Read more on my Psychology Today Beyond the Doubt blog.
Interrupt OCD’s Mental Rituals with “May or May Not”
If you have trouble using Shoulders Back/Man in the Park because you keep transacting with your OCD in your mind, otherwise known as “mentally ritualizing” or what some call “pure-O,” read about an ERP technique that’s a bridge tool to help you develop the strength to do Shoulders Back/Man in the Park effectively.
Q&A for Shoulders Back! The Man in the Park
Here are the questions submitted about my blog post Shoulders Back! The Man in the Park and my answers.
Shoulders Back! The Man in the Park
The man in the park metaphor is one I use all the time with clients to explain how to most effectively handle OCD.
The Best Ted Talks for People with OCD
I wrote a 5-part series for my Beyond the Doubt Psychology Today blog called The Best TED Talks for People with OCD, plus an additional post related to Part 4 about how to feel more connected to others.
Taming OCD and Reclaiming Your Life
Make the most of your recovery journey with six steps. Read this post on my Beyond the Doubt Psychology Today blog. [...]
I’m an OCD Therapist With OCD. And I Don’t Do ERP Perfectly
How to turn OCD's little wins into BIG victories for your recovery. Read this post on my Beyond the Doubt Psychology [...]
Why There’s No Cure for OCD
But you can have an amazing, joyful life anyway! Read this post on my Beyond the Doubt Psychology Today [...]
The Hidden Power of Swearing at Your OCD
Three ways to use the art and science of cursing to power up your recovery. Read this post on my [...]
Attitude Matters If You Want to Beat OCD
What manspreading, "c is for center," and a Buddhist equation mean for recovery. Read this post on my Beyond the [...]
The Five Things My OCD and I Learned in the South of France
Why my OCD is very sorry it threw a tantrum in a train station. Read this post on my Beyond [...]
What My OCD and I Are Packing for Our Trip to France
Why I never leave home without four special keys...that don't unlock my house. Read this post on my Beyond [...]
Aha! Moments from a magazine encouraging us to “Be a little OCD.”
I'm not going to say which magazine put "Be a little OCD" in print because this is not about shaming them; that would be doing the very thing that I'm advocating against. Instead, this is about education.
Aha! Moments from Stopping the Noise in Your Head
On Monday, as I was boarding a flight from Baltimore to Atlanta, I asked the flight attendant standing by the cockpit door [...]
Aha! Moments from The Five Things We Cannot Change
When you have OCD and/or anxiety, your life can be dominated by attempts to attain the BIG Cs: CONTROL and [...]
Aha! Moments from an Aha! Moment … and dog toys … and questionable holiday merchandising choices …
Why do I have a dog toy with a tissue taped to it sitting on my desk? And how [...]
Aha! Moments from Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World
I read the following paragraph from Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams [...]
Aha! Moments from the 2015 IOCDF Conference, Part 2
"You can do this," I said as I held Lily's hand, the scene before me becoming blurry as my [...]
Aha! Moments from the 2015 IOCDF Conference, Part 1
As I sit here thinking about what an amazing time I had at the 2015 IOCDF Conference—the fun I [...]
The 2015 IOCDF Conference
We're less than one week away from one of my favorite events of the year: the International OCD Foundation Annual Conference. [...]
Aha! Moments from Brené Brown on Empathy
One of the most basic human desires is to be understood. To be heard fully and deeply by another [...]
Aha! Moments from Self-Compassion
Let's talk about something seemingly unrelated to OCD: the Stockholm syndrome. Named after a situation in the early 1970s where [...]
Aha! Moments from Frozen
When I was a little girl, I used to daydream that I had fantastic, magical powers. I would imagine myself [...]
Aha! Moments from the 2014 IOCDF Conference
When I attended my first International OCD Foundation conference in 2010, the whole thing was one huge Aha! Moment [...]
Aha! Moments from Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk: Your body language shapes who you are
Watching Amy Cuddy's TED Talk, "Your body language shapes who you are," gave me an aha! moment about a new way [...]
Aha! Moments from Man’s Search for Meaning and Unbroken
It was an auspicious coincidence that I decided to read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl and Unbroken: A World War [...]
Aha! Moments from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
I love the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. I have read the books and watched the movies countless times. [...]
Aha! Moments from Freedom from OCD
One of the things I love most about Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Jonathan Grayson, PhD is Dr. Grayson's [...]
Aha! Moments from The Onion
For as long as I can remember, I have personified my OCD and thought of it as an entity [...]
Aha! Moments from Glee
I grew up in the 80s, and with the exception of the "big hair" phenomenon, nothing defines that decade for [...]
Aha! Moments from The Emotional Life of Your Brain
My parents saw one of the authors of The Emotional Life of Your Brain, Richard Davidson, Ph.D., interviewed on Charlie [...]
Aha! Moments from Still Alice
During Brene Brown's ecourse, The Gifts of Imperfection, she once said, "Vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Showing up [...]
Aha! Moments from Still Alice, continued
The pills Several days after Abby's passing, I was driving to work listening to Still Alice. Alice's memory was failing [...]
Aha! Moments from Full Catastrophe Living
I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but there are two things I've learned in the past few years [...]
Aha! Moments from Imp of the Mind
The Imp of the Mind: Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive Bad Thoughts, by Lee Baer, PhD, is a [...]
Aha! Moments from StrengthsFinder 2.0
OCD can be a little overwhelming at times. You can feel like your whole life is defined by OCD [...]
Aha! Moments from The Happiness Project
In November of 2012 on a flight home from a training given by the International OCD Foundation in Boston, I [...]
Aha! Moments from Wild by Cheryl Strayed
On no page of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail will you find any mention of OCD. [...]
Aha! Moments from The Four Agreements
The basic premise of The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz, is how to live a life free from [...]
Aha! Moments from UnWholly
There are certain science fiction books I just love, and UnWholly by Neal Shusterman is one of them. Unwholly [...]
Aha! Moments from The House of Velvet and Glass
In The House of Velvet and Glass, Sybil Allston is trying to make sense of the death of her [...]
Aha! Moments from Tapestry of Fortunes
Recently I read the novel Tapestry of Fortunes by Elizabeth Berg. The main character, Cece Ross, is a motivational [...]