Obessive-Compulsive Disorder

Mallory Cybulski is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 10 years of experience working in the Chicago community. She also has over 25 years of experience struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Since childhood, efforts to share her inner experience were either dismissed or minimized. As a result, she spent most of her life struggling, alone and in silence, and questioning if all of this was, in fact, a plea for attention or something she had over-dramatized in her head. Trainings such as these are both affirming and healing. Not only can she provide insight into a diagnosis that is profoundly difficult to understand, but she can also validate her own experience.

1. A comprehensive look at the diagnosis

a. DSM-5 criteria

b. Course and development

c. Comorbidity

d. Differential Diagnoses

2. Different types of OCD

a. Main 5 Subtypes:

i. Contamination obsessions with cleaning compulsions

ii. Harm obsessions with checking compulsions

iii. Obsessions without compulsions

iv. Symmetry obsession with ordering compulsions

v. Hoarding

b. Other Subtypes:

i. Relationship OCD

ii. “Just Right” OCD

iii. False Memory OCD

iv. Magical Thinking OCD

c. There is no consensus as to how many OCD subtypes exist, or even what those subtypes are. For instance, some contend that there are seven types of OCD:

i. Contamination obsessions

ii. Violent obsessions

iii. Responsibility obsessions,

iv. Perfectionism-related obsessions,

v. Sexual obsessions,

vi. Religious/moral obsessions, and

vii. Identity obsessions.

3. Treatment Methods

a. Exposure and Response Prevention

b. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

c. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

d. Psychodynamic Approach

e. Role of Medic*tion

4. Therapeutic Challenges

a. A client’s experience with OCD is oftentimes, very difficult to understand or relate to. How can you bridge this gap?

b. How can you practice perspective taking for a mental experience you do not understand?

c. How can you practice empathy?

d. Despite how different the client’s symptom presentation may be, how can you access shared experience to strengthen the therapeutic relationship?

Host or Publisher Community Counseling Centers of Chicago (C4)