Posts Tagged with International OCD Foundation

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Free, Virtual Event: An Overview of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD): Assessment, Diagnosis & Treatment by Chris Trondsen, LMFT!

https://www.ocdnc.org/ocd-lecture-series

OCD Southern California Vice President, Chris Trondsen, LMFT, will guest present for a fellow affiliate’s event: OCD North Carolina’s OCD (and related disorders) Lecture Series. This lecture series is a free, virtual event, and Chris will be the guest on Tuesday, March 17th at 7pm ET.

To sign up for the event to get the Zoom link, please visit: https://www.ocdnc.org/ocd-lecture-series. The lecture will be on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, from 7-8pm ET (4-5pm PT). You’ll receive a Zoom link / reminder in advance of the meeting. To contact OCD North Carolina, please visit: https://www.ocdnc.org/contact-us or you can DM them on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ocdnc/

This month’s lecture will feature Chris Trondsen, MS, LMFT, presenting “An Overview of Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Assessment, Diagnosis, and Treatment.” Chris Trondsen, LMFT, is a BDD and OCD specialist, a member of the IOCDF’s BDD Special Interest Group (SIG), has presented at conferences around the world on the topic including the BDD Foundation’s Conference in the UK, and has been featured on podcasts discussing BDD. Additionally, he has BDD himself.

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is an OCD-related disorder where an individual fixates on their appearance, often focused on particular body parts, and feel they look ugly, deformed, and are not deserving of love or affection. They often camouflage their appearance, isolate, withdraw, and seek out cosmetic interventions to fix their perceived appearance “flaws.” Visit: the IOCDF’s BDD website for more information on BDD.

Chris Trondsen’s presentation will focus on how to recognize BDD, how clinicians can diagnose it, what makes BDD unique among other image disorders, the diagnostic criteria one must meet to receive a diagnosis of BDD, the treatment of BDD, and some of his personal experiences with the disorder. It will be followed by a Q&A!

We hope many of you will join or pass it on to anyone who may find information on BDD useful. We will see you there! To sign up for the event to get the Zoom link, please visit: https://www.ocdnc.org/ocd-lecture-series. The lecture will be on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, from 7-8pm ET (4-5pm PT). You’ll receive a Zoom link / reminder in advance of the meeting.

To contact OCD North Carolina, please visit: https://www.ocdnc.org/contact-us or you can DM them on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ocdnc/

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Join Us Sunday, December 21st at 9am PST for the talk ‘Rise Beyond OCD: Answers, Insight and Inspiration to Move Forward!’

OCD Southern California is excited to invite you to join OCD SoCal board members Chris Trondsen, LMFT, and his mom, Liz Trondsen as they join Shannon Shy as the next guests in his series, “90 Minutes with the Icons of the OCD Recovery Community!”

The event is Sunday, December 21st, 2025, starting at 9am PST (12 noon ET) and is 90 minutes long, ending at 10:30am PST (1:30pm ET).

Once a month, Shannon Shy, the 2010 Keynote speaker for the IOCDF’s annual OCD conference, brings on leading experts, as well as people from the OCD community, to share their stories, provide hope, and answer questions.

This Sunday, December 21st, Chris and Liz Trondsen will be his guests and share their talk titled, “Rise Beyond OCD: Answers, Insight, and Inspiration to Move Forward!” Email us at info@ocdsocal.org and request the free Zoom link!

Here’s some additional information on this Sunday’s free, virtual presentation:

Title: Rise Beyond OCD: Answers, Insight, & Inspiration to Move Forward – A part of Shannon Shy’s ’90 Minutes with the Icons of the OCD Recovery Community.’

Guests: Chris Trondsen, LMFT & Liz Trondsen. Read Chris and Liz’s Bios Here

Day & Time: Sunday, December 21, 2025 at 9 AM PST (12 PM EST) for 90 minutes.

Event Description: Chris Trondsen and his mother Liz stepped into the international spotlight of OCD recovery when they jointly gave the keynote address at the 2011 International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) conference.

Chris suffered severely for many years with OCD (he also suffered with Body Dysmorphic Disorder, anxiety, depression and panic attacks) and eventually found treatment and his path to recovery aided by the loving support of Liz and the family.

Chris is now a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) treating OCD and related disorders at The Gateway Institute in Southern California, sits on the Board of Directors for the IOCDF and OCD SoCal, and has become one of the most well-known voices of OCD recovery.

Liz also sits on the OCD SoCal Board of Directors and facilitates the OCD Support Group for Families and Loved Ones.

We hope you join Shannon, Chris and Liz for 90 minutes to listen to a talk of hope, recovery tips, and tangible action items to support your recovery journey!

Their presentation if followed by a Q&A session. Email us at info@ocdsocal.org and request the free Zoom link!

About the event’s host: Shannon Shy – Certified Peer Recovery Specialist

Shannon is a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist and an attorney who retired from the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2007 and from federal civil service with the Department of the Navy in 2022 after thirty years of total service. Diagnosed with a severe case of OCD in 1997 while on active duty, he underwent treatment and developed his own strategy to successfully overcome OCD. Shannon was the Keynote Speaker at the 2010 Annual IOCDF Conference and served on the IOCDF Board of Directors from 2011 – 2018, when he resigned his position as President to go serve in Afghanistan.

He has written three books on overcoming OCD, operated a Facebook page about OCD recovery, produced an online course about his peer support methodology and has successfully provided peer support to OCD sufferers since 2016 worldwide.

In 2016, the State of Virginia certified him as a Peer Recovery Specialist. He has successfully worked with hundreds of clients around the world. His Turning Points Method to OCD Recovery members site contains a wealth of resources created by him to aid people in recovery.



Shannon Shy’s Unconditional Commitment Club
www.ocdrecoveryturningpoints.com

Join Shannon Shy every month for a 90-minute interview and audience Q&A session with the icons of the OCD Recovery Community!

For upcoming guests, visit Shannon’s website.

We look forward to having you join us this Sunday, December 21st at 9am PST for 90 minutes! Make sure to email info@ocdsocal.org for the event’s Zoom link!

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Super Early Bird Registration for Our November Conference Opens on Friday, August 1, 2025! Save the Date!

On Saturday, November 15 – Sunday, November 16, 2025, OCD Southern California is hosting a global conference that features OCD expert presenters from all around the world! On Friday, August 1st, we are opening registration for the conference. This will be our Super Early Bird Registration at only $20 per person, our lowest cost registration for this event. Please register between Friday, August 1st through Sunday, August 31st to take advantage of our lowest cost sign up and enjoy this two-day event! Registration cost is to cover our non-profit’s cost of creating a conference platform and hiring a team to run the event.

As always, we do not want cost to prevent anyone from attending any of our OCD SoCal events. Please email info@ocdsocal.org to receive complimentary registration through one of our scholarships.

We will also post the agenda and program soon! We are just announcing that conference registration opens on August 1st so that you can save the date!

The conference is aimed at people with OCD and the family members, spouses, parents, and loved ones who support them. This conference is also for professionals and educators who want to learn more about the OCD and related disorders community and how to support those impacted. We also hope anyone else interested in the OCD community attends! For professionals seeking continuing education credits, we are able to offer CEs through the University of Southern California (USC) at a low cost!

Meanwhile, we hope you clear your calendars and are able to attend live on Saturday, November 15th through Sunday, November 16th for our event! The conference is from 9am to 6:30pm PST (including after hours community discussion groups and interactive events) on Saturday the 15th and 9am to 3pm PST on Sunday the 16th.

If you cannot join the conference live, registering will allow you to watch each of the presentation recordings for up to 60 days after the event at your convenience!

Email us with any questions or to get on our mailing list: info@ocdsocal.org!

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Join us this Saturday, July 19th, from 11am to 1pm PT for our July virtual, Family & Loved One’s OCD Support Group!

We are excited to hold a special edition of our monthly family and loved ones OCD Support Group this Saturday, July 19, from 11 AM to 1 PM PT. We typically have our support group every second Saturday of the month, but last Saturday, your group co-facilitators, Chris Trondsen, LMFT, And Liz Trondsen, were presenting at the IOCDF’s 30th annual OCD conference. It was great to meet many of you there and hear that our support means so much to you! So, to make up for missing last week, we are actually holding the July support group this Saturday, July 19 from 11 AM to 1 PM. If you would like to get the link to this Saturday’s support group, and are already not on our mailing list, please email us at: info@ocdsocal.org and provide all the email addresses you would like the Zoom link emailed to.

We are bringing on a special guest doctor, Stephen Poskar (https://www.ocdnyc.com), a psychiatrist practicing in New York. Dr. Poskar recently led the International OCD Foundation’s launch of updated treatment guidelines https://iocdf.org/ocd-treatment-guide/. These guidelines explain to the public the frontline, gold standard, and evidence-based treatments for obsessive compulsive disorder, both through medication and other psychopharmacology interventions, as well as appropriate behavioral interventions.

For this Saturday’s presentation, Dr. Stephen Poskar and Chris Trondsen, a licensed therapist specializing in the treatment of OCD and related disorders, will team up to go over those treatment guidelines. Our goal is to have a discussion on what families should expect when first seeking out treatment, what treatment should look like as it progresses and then the final stages of treatment. We will speak based on the guidelines, as well as years of clinical practice.

Our goal for you as an attendee is to get a good solid understanding of what to expect if you or a loved one is first seeking out treatment, is currently in treatment or if you are wrapping up treatment or cutting back on sessions. All participants should have a solid understanding of the frontline treatments for OCD, what to expect in each stage of treatment, and what new research is on the horizon.

For this support group, we want to give you plenty of time to share your story and ask questions. We will be leaving plenty of time for questions and answers so you may ask any personal medication or clinical questions. This group is open to family members, spouses, siblings, parents, and loved ones of someone with OCD, or for clinicians wanting to learn more, or people with OCD and related disorders!

We look forward to seeing you this Saturday. Below is Dr. Stephen Poskar’s bio and then the zoom link to join us this Saturday. We’re excited to see you there!

Dr. Poskar is one of the nation’s leading experts on the treatment of OCD and Related Disorders.  He is a member of the Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board of the International OCD Foundation. He also serves on the faculty of the IOCDF Behavior Therapy Training Institute.  Dr. Poskar co-founded OCD New York, a charity whose mission is to help all those affected by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Related Disorders to live full and productive lives.

Dr. Poskar is one of the few clinicians in the country with expertise in using both medication and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to treat OCD and Related Disorders.  Patients are commonly referred to Dr. Poskar by their individual therapists so that he may treat them with medication.  In these cases Dr. Poskar works closely with each patient’s therapist because he views this collaborative approach to be essential for the provision of the best possible care.

Dr. Poskar is medically licensed in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Connecticut and Virginia.

If you would like to get the link to this Saturday’s support group, and are already not on our mailing list, please email us at: info@ocdsocal.org and provide all the email addresses you would like the Zoom link emailed to. We look forward to seeing you this Saturday!