Posts Tagged with mental health awareness

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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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Save the Date! OCD Southern California is Hosting a Low-Cost, Global, Online OCD Conference on Saturday, November 15 – Sunday, November 16, 2025!

OCD Southern California has hosted both in-person and virtual conferences since 2015. For over a decade, we have worked to offer programming and community to individuals and families impacted by OCD–both locally and to attendees online. OCD SoCal is stepping it up and offering a global conference that features presenters from all around the world!

We are opening registration soon, and we will also post the agenda and program soon! We are just announcing the conference dates officially today 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!

Early, early bird registration at our lowest cost will open soon and we will announce that shortly! Meanwhile, we hope you clear your calendars and are able to attend live on Saturday, November 15th through Sunday, November 16th! Each presentation will have a Q&A segment you can engage in. 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!

More information to come, but we hope you open the weekend of November 15th and 16th and join OCD SoCal’s global, Online OCD Conference this year! See you there! 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!

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You Are Invited To A Free, Virtual Family & Loved One’s OCD Support Group This Saturday, May 10 at 11am PT!

You are invited to join us on Saturday, May 10th, from 11 am to 1 pm PT for our monthly, free, virtual Family and Loved One’s OCD Support Group! This support group is for family members, parents, loved ones, spouses, and anyone supporting someone with OCD! Additionally, if someone with OCD and related disorders would like to join us or a mental health professional wanting to learn more about OCD, you are invited as well. Since this event is virtual, anyone from anywhere can join us! To get the Zoom link for May 10th’s support group, PLEASE EMAIL: info@ocdsocal.org. Let us know in the email you would like the Zoom link, and please include any additional email addresses to which you would like us to send the Zoom link!

For our May 10th support group, we are thrilled to welcome Michelle Malloy, MFT, PMH-C. She will be speaking on S.P.A.C.E. or Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions, a program developed at Yale. As those of you who have attended our previous support groups know, many of you have been curious about SPACE and want to know more about it. Michelle’s talk will explain the program and discuss how to utilize SPACE in your own family.

A description of her talk:

S.P.A.C.E. To the Rescue! Tips for Parents to Manage Their Children’s* Anxiety and OCD (*Children of all ages)

Are you a parent finding it difficult to figure out how to best support your loved one’s OCD? This presentation is aimed at helping parents to support their children of all ages, while reducing parental support for their OCD behaviors. Utilizing techniques from SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), this talk aids parents in differing anxiety from behavioral issues, learning tools in how to support anxious children, learning how to increase support while reducing accommodations, and finding out how to make small changes that lead to big and successful outcomes! This talk is for parents of children who are all ages: adults, young adults, teens, and young children.

More info on our guest speaker:

Michelle Malloy, MFT, PMH-C

Website: https://oc-therapy.com/about-us

Bio: Michelle Malloy, MFT, PMH-C, completed her Bachelor’s Degree at UCLA in Psychology and went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from Cal State Fullerton. She has worked in mental health for over twenty years. She received training from the UCLA Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Clinic and Western Youth Services. Michelle has completed the Behavioral Therapy Training Institute (BTTI)’s general and pediatric training programs through the International OCD Foundation and specializes in using cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure and response prevention to treat OCD. She also treats generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and eating disorders. Additionally, she is certified in perinatal mental health and EMDR trained.

More info about the support group:

This support group meets every second Saturday of the month from 11 am to 1 pm PT. It features families and individuals who have overcome their OCD and share their journey. Additionally, we have special guest researchers, psychiatrists, authors, treatment providers, and other special guests each month. We hope to see you Saturday, May 10th, at 11 am PT. Please email us at info@ocdsocal.org to be on our mailing list and receive the May support group’s Zoom link!