Therapy on the Cutting Edge Treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Effectively Using Exposure with Response Prevention and Reaching Clinicians and Clients Through the Medium of Reality Television
Aug 16, 2021
01:01:55
In this episode, I speak with Shana about her work with adults with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder at UCLA’s intensive treatment program. We discuss Exposure with Response Prevention, the effective, evidence based treatment for OCD, as well as Shana’s experience with the Obsessed tv series on A&E. We discuss how I use clips of her work with one of the clients and how impactful that reality tv show has been in helping clinicians understand ERP as well as helping clients see what effective OCD treatment looks like. Shana discusses the changes in content of OCD and particularly the “harm to others” obsession that has attached itself to the social justice movements of the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and other social issues where OCD patients obsess about saying the wrong thing or bumping into someone, and thus causing a micro or macro aggressions. We discuss how clients with OCD are the least likely to harm someone, which is why in the second episode of Obsessed, she has her client whose fear is that she will kill someone against her will, and has that client hold a knife to her throat in session and sit with the distress of the ability to kill someone, and the new learning taking place that interrupts the thought-action fusion of OCD.
Shana Doronn, LCSW, PsyD is a licensed Clinical Social Worker and Doctor of Psychology in the UCLA OCD Intensive Treatment Program. She received her MSW at USC and her Psy.D. at University of San Francisco. Dr. Doronn frequently presents on OCD and related disorders in workshops and symposiums throughout the country. She was also a featured therapist on A&E’s reality documentary “Obsessed” from 2008-2010. In addition to her current work in the OCD Intensive Treatment Program, Dr. Doronn also treats patients with OCD and other anxiety disorders in her private practice in Los Angeles and Orange County.