Why People With OCD Need an OCD Specialist

Fact: Most non-specialists aren't that good with OCD.

Good help is hard to find.

Persons with OCD often deal with symptoms for well over a decade before finally obtaining a suitable course of treatment. It's not uncommon for OCD sufferers to spend years going through a chain of clinicians and medications without even receiving a correct diagnosis.

One contributing factor to this frustrating situation is that most mental health workers (even if adept at treating one or more other conditions) aren't so good with OCD. Moreover, there's a large chance they won't be able to identify OCD, even if the symptoms are presented to them.

• People with OCD spend years looking for help
• Most clinicians miss most symptoms of OCD
• How to test your clinician's competency with OCD
• People with OCD deserve competent care

OCD can include such an array of symptoms that non-specialists can easily fail to recognize.

If you're a compulsive handwasher, and you show up to your first appointment with lobster-red hands and reveal that you're spending more than an hour each day at the sink, pretty much any type of clinician should be able to determine that you have OCD.

However, if you come to that first appointment and say you're dealing with uncontrollable images about harming other people (for example, kicking a stranger in front of an oncoming subway), a non-specialist might just assume you're the next American Psycho. A legitimate specialist, however, should be able to grasp the reality that you're likely not a homicidal maniac but, rather, suffering from intrusive thought OCD.

People with OCD need tough love to get better.

Another pitfall when dealing with non-specialists involves the subject of reassurance. Clinicians who work mainly with depression and general anxiety are inclined to regard reassurance as a good thing. After all, they spend much of their careers reassuring patients that they are not hopeless, that they are worthy of affection, etc.

Giving reassurance to an OCD sufferer, however, is like giving drugs to a substance-abuser. It's catering to the habit. OCD patients are inclined to need 100-percent certainty. After all, a fundamental part of OCD is the inability to tolerate any degree of uncertainty.

As the symptoms of OCD can vary so widely, so can the manifestations of reassurance-seeking. Non-specialists will be less apt at confronting your obsessions and giving you the tough love of denying you reassurance. Instead, they will likely give you the reassurance you crave, and unknowingly pump added fuel into your OCD. A trained OCD specialist can spot the signs of reassurance-seeking.

How can you know if your clinician is knowledgable enough to help you recover from OCD?

If you wish to conduct a quick test of a clinician's competency with OCD, there are certain talking points you can introduce.

Any professionals claiming to treat OCD should be comfortable discussing CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and ERP (Exposure Response Prevention). If they seem elusive or uninformed about these items, you probably want to seek treatment elsewhere.

If they dismiss CBT and ERP only to begin touting some alternative therapy, get out ASAP.

If a clinician is conversant on the topic of CBT but then goes silent when you mention ERP, you should be wary. Not all CBTs are equal. Some of them are useless — or even counterproductive — for treating OCD.

Having OCD means you've already suffered enough. You owe it to yourself to secure a suitable course of treatment.

Scientific Reference

McKay, D, Abramowitz, JS, Storch, EA. Mechanisms of harmful treatments for obsessive–compulsive disorder. Clin Psychol Sci Pract. 2020; 00:e12337. doi: 10.1111/cpsp.12337

Related News About OCD

Savitch-Lew, A. (2021, April 23). NYC youth struggling with OCD face compounded challenges in pandemic. City Limits. [NYC]

Contact an OCD Expert