Why Do We Care So Much About OCD Training?

People with OCD deserve clinicians who have received quality OCD training. The three of us at OCD Training School have lived experience with OCD, so this mission is personal. If we can help clinicians learn evidence-based ways to treat OCD, then our fellow OCD sufferers are more likely to get the help they deserve. They are less likely to have to suffer in the ways that we have.

Impact of OCD on Our Lives

Together, we have decades and decades of obsessional doubt, anxiety, compulsions, fear, guilt, disgust, toxic shame, and grief all due to OCD. We've had OCD invade big life events like family vacations, graduations, birthdays, and weddings. We've watched our loved ones struggle with worry as they watched our pain. OCD affected our lives in more ways than we can count.

And through all of that, we worked on getting better. Sometimes, it felt like there was nothing that could help. Other times, we thought that life wasn't able to get any better than it was and that our treatments could only take us so far. But each of us is now in recovery from OCD. Each of us found a path.

What makes us SO excited about OCD treatment today is that there are more solid options and emerging treatments than ever before. There is hope.

Our Own OCD Training Journeys

For those of you who are not clinicians, you may not be aware that when you go to grad school to become a therapist, you don't walk out of there as an expert on all mental health conditions. Most likely, you have been taught a bit about various mental health conditions and instructions to seek continuing education once you are out into the mental health world and select a specialty. Most clinicians learn most of what they know about their specialty areas AFTER grad school. Grad school gives you tools and insight into the therapeutic relationship and how to do some modalities, but many of us learn modalities once we graduate.

None of us at OCD Training School were taught an evidence-based treatment for OCD during our time in grad school. We all eventually learned ERP, ACT, and I-CBT. Some of that learning was through formal trainings and some of it was through reading books and talking things out with colleagues and paying for consultation. For I-CBT, there were no trainings when we became interested in learning it. So, after learning it through consultation with I-CBT Co-Founder Frederick Aardema, PhD and other skilled and practicing clinicians (Mike Heady, LCPC and Carl Robbins, LCPC), we began using it with clients. Having another tool to help our clients (and seeing the positives of being able to give OCD sufferers more options for their treatment) made us want to help other clinicians have access to quality OCD trainings.

Our Goals for OCD Trainings We Offer

It's important to us at OCD Training School that we provide trainings to therapists that will help them learn about various tools that can be used to treat OCD. Evidence-based treatments are important because we know that research supports their use. Emerging treatments that have some established research about their conceptual framework or are based on already evidence-based treatments are important too because we know that not everyone is going to benefit from the main treatment models we have now. Many will, but not everyone. And EVERYONE deserves a treatment that works for them. One of the greatest things about science is that it continues to advance - and we believe that more and more evidence-based treatment options will emerge for OCD.

We also know that co-occurring conditions are important to look at when we are treating a whole person. So, we want to offer quality trainings for not only OCD, but for the conditions that often coincide with OCD.

Treating OCD is Important - OCD Training is too!

We know from our own healing journeys that life with OCD under control can be amazing. We hope that if you are a fellow OCD sufferer and reading this, that you will keep advocating for treatment that works for you. Not everyone needs the same thing. We also hope that any clinician you reach out to for support will take time to really understand OCD and the evidence-based treatment options out there.

For those of you that are clinicians, we know what it is like to be working with a client and find a stuck point. We hope that as we build our library of trainings, you will find some new tools to put in your toolbox to better serve your clients. As a clinician, it feels empowering and humbling to be able to walk along a journey of healing with our clients with the right tools in hand.

Here's to OCD recovery! We are honored to do our part in helping to make finding quality trainings easier.

Best,

Bronwyn, Katie, and Gina
OCD Training School Co-Founders