Posts Tagged with ocd

Published

Meet the Keynote Speakers Of Our Online OCD Conference, A Global Event, Happening November 15 to 16, 2025!

(Click on images to enlarge)

https://ocdconference.eventbrite.com

Our keynote presentation, “Stronger Together: Community, Compassion, and Resilience,” captures the essence of a conference’s theme and helps kick off the event in an exciting way! For our 2025, Online OCD Conference, a Global Event, we welcome our 5 keynote presenters, Chrissie Hodges, Kyle King, Andrew Gottworth, Stuart Ralph, and Natasha Daniels (scroll below for more information, including bios, of our 5 keynote presenters). The keynote is kicking off our conference and being held on Saturday, November 15, 2025, from 9:30am – 11:00am PST.

The title of our keynote is “Stronger Together: Community, Compassion, and Resilience.” In recent years, OCD research, treatment, and awareness have increased. However, the needs for OCD community members, both with lived experience and clinicians, outweigh the current resources available. In times of need, we look for community and accessible services for support. We are thrilled to present a panel consisting of leaders in our field who have created accessible community events and services that are currently available for people affected by OCD!

Meet our keynote speakers!

Chrissie Hodges is a Certified Peer Support Specialist living in Colorado and working with individuals
worldwide providing peer support, support groups, and an online community through Treatment for
OCD Consulting. She is the author of ‘Pure OCD: The Invisible Side of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder’. Chrissie is the founder and executive director of the non-profit ‘OCD Gamechangers‘. She is the Chief Operating Officer of Peer Recovery Services, a Colorado based Government contract placing and supervising certified peer support specialists in the Colorado State Institutions. Chrissie is an advocate for OCD through Youtube, social media, and the podcast ‘Intrusive Thoughts Unmasked’. 

Kyle King is a medical student at the Yale School of Medicine interested in psychiatry, neurosurgery, and
social determinants of health. Kyle was diagnosed with OCD at age 13 and, for six months, was
completely debilitated by the disorder. Eventually, Kyle found a therapist specializing in Exposure-
Response Prevention and, within a year of beginning treatment, had reclaimed his life from OCD. Since
recovering, Kyle has been heavily involved in OCD advocacy work with the International OCD Foundation, currently co-leading the Young Adult Special Interest Group and co-hosting the
monthly Research Roundtable livestream. Outside of advocacy, Kyle has worked in different research
labs for the past five years on projects ranging from the neurobiology of OCRDs to hospital pricing
schemes. And when he wants to stop thinking about medical stuff, Kyle loves watching The
Simpsons and pretty much any stand-up comedy special.

Andrew GottWorth is an IOCDF Advocate, educator, and trainer in Berlin Germany, from Louisville,
Kentucky. Bachelor of Science in Physics from Western Kentucky University and Master of Science in
Environmental Studies from Kentucky State University. Student Experience Coordinator at CODE
University of Applied Sciences. Disc Golf trainer and amateur Disc Golf player. Long time volunteer with
Teen Leadership programs, conferences, and nonprofits. 

Founded the Berlin OCD Walk and launched the International Networking & Advocacy group that brings
together advocates of all levels to help grow the I in IOCDF. Loves combining evidence-based practices
from research background, with compassion and service from volunteering and advocacy. 

Stuart Ralph is a counsellor and psychotherapist (MBACP Accred) for children and young people in the
UK. He is co-founder of The Integrative Centre for OCD Therapy. He founded The OCD Stories podcast, a weekly podcast where he interviews some of the best minds in OCD recovery which has been
downloaded more than 8 million times globally. In 2018 he was given the hero award by the
International OCD Foundation.

Natasha Daniels has been an anxiety & OCD therapist for over two decades. She combines both her
clinical expertise with her lived experience, raising her own three kids with anxiety and OCD. She is the
creator of the website AT Parenting Survival. She gives in-depth support to parents raising kids with
anxiety or OCD through her books, courses in the AT Parenting Survival Online School and in her online
membership AT Parenting Community. Her latest books include Crushing OCD Workbook for Kids and
her memoir, Out of My Shell: Overcoming Social Anxiety from Childhood to Adulthood.

Prior to the keynote, there will be an intro to the conference by OCD Southern California’s President, Melissa Mose, LMFT, and an overview of the day’s events by Vice President, Chris Trondsen, LMFT. Additionally, Chris Trondsen, LMFT, will moderate they keynote.

We will see you at our online conference! The event is on Saturday, November 15, and Sunday, November 16, 2025. To register for our event, please visit https://ocdconference.eventbrite.com and for more information on our conference, please visit https://ocdsocal.org/conference or email us at info@ocdsocal.org!

Published

Join Us Saturday, August 9th, for Our Free, Virtual Family & Loved Ones OCD Support Group!

Join us for our August support group on Saturday, August 9, 2025, from 11AM – 1 PM PT.  To receive the support group Zoom link, or for any additional questions, please email: info@ocdsocal.org! Here are our special guests:

Family Accommodation in OCD: How to Identify and Stop These Behaviors! – Barbara Van Noppen, Ph.D. http://ocdsocal.org/about-us/board-of-directors/ and Stephanie Davis, Ph.D. http://www.drdavistherapy.com/

Family accommodation, which includes enabling and providing reassurance, predicts poorer therapeutic outcomes for your loved one and is associated with greater OCD impairment. This presentation will explain accommodation behaviors through the lens of functional behavioral analysis (why your loved one wants this behavior and why parents, family members, and spouse feel inclined to give in to their loved one’s OCD). Specific types of family accommodation in OCD will be identified along with information on the Family Accommodation Scale (FAS), a measure to identify how much you are accommodating your loved one’s OCD. We will then discuss methods of accommodation reduction that can be used whether you are supporting a child, young adult, or adult loved one, including common language, family contracts, and motivational scripts. Video will be used to demonstrate behavioral family contracting. We will end with a discussion of additional treatment strategies to reduce familyaccommodation including the Supportive Parenting for Anxious Emotions program (SPACE) and behavior modification through rewards and supportive statements. 

Prior to the event, we will send out an email with the Zoom link for the support group and also have more information on the agenda and speakers. We hope to see you there on Saturday, August 9th!

In order to foster a safe community, we do not record the support group. This allows attendees the opportunity to share their experiences and ask questions in a safe space. We encourage you to attend or listen in to the support group live on Saturday.

Please note: if you received this email, you are currently on our mailing list.  You will automatically receive the Zoom link and do not need to request it.  Then just click the link and join us at 11 AM on August 9th!  You don’t need to RSVP.

See you there this Saturday, August 9th, at 11am PDT!

Published

Registration Is Now Open For Our Online OCD Conference, A Global Event Happening November 15th & 16th! Take Advantage of Super Early Bird Registration!

https://ocdconference.eventbrite.com

The time is finally here to register for OCD Southern California’s Online OCD conference, a global event featuring presenters from around the world! https://ocdconference.eventbrite.com

This will be our organization’s 9th conference, but we have never done a conference as large as this one! Join us on Saturday, November 15 and Sunday, November 16, 2025, for two days of information and community focused on OCD and related disorders.

The conference begins with a Keynote consisting of 5 superstars who have created and now lead community building organizations and activities. The conference is two days filled with 46 different panel presentations led by some of the top OCD experts, researchers, psychiatrists, advocates, and people impacted by OCD. We also have evening activities, including community support groups and a call-in show, and we’re wrapping up the conference with an “Ask the Experts” Q&A panel and an opportunity drawing for prizes. We have more information on our registration page: https://ocdconference.eventbrite.com

Our Super Early Bird registration is from August 1 – August 31. This is our lowest cost registration at only $20 per person for admission to this two-day event.

For professionals (LMFT, LPCC, LCSW, and psychologists) seeking continuing education credits, we’re offering 8.75 CEs during early bird registration for only $60. This covers your CEs and attendance. https://ocdconference.eventbrite.com

If you visit here on our website, Online OCD Conference Agenda, we have posted the agenda that includes talk descriptions, speakers, our different conference tracks, and additional information.

Make sure to email info@ocdsocal.org with any questions, as well as to request to be added to our mailing list as we continue to pump out more information about our November event. We will be sending you more information on our keynote speakers, the full program, and more details in the very near future.

The low cost of registration is to cover the event as we are working with an expert event team that is building our conference website and event platform. We will be utilizing Zoom for this conference, so if you’re comfortable with Zoom, the conference will be familiar to you and easy to navigate!

Register ASAP to take advantage of our lowest cost registration and make sure to email us at scholarships@ocdsocal.org if cost is a factor and you’d like to request a scholarship ticket for attendance.

Our Board of Directors and conference committee thank you for your interest and we’re excited to bring you one of the largest OCD conferences in the world! We look forward to seeing you on November 15th and 16th! All presentations will be recorded, and you will have 60 days to access the recordings if you are registered. To register for our Online OCD Conference, A Global Event, visit: https://ocdconference.eventbrite.com.

Published

The Agenda for OCD Southern California’s Online OCD Conference, A Global Event, Is Now Available!

OCD Southern California is hosting an Online OCD Conference from Saturday, November 15 – Sunday, November 16, 2025. We are welcoming attendees from anywhere! This event is both for people affected by OCD and clinicians. Professional CEs are being offered.

Our conference agenda includes information on the day and time of the talks, the talk titles, and the names of the panel presenters. Additionally, the agenda includes the different tracks we are offering. Remember, tracks are only a suggestion. For instance, if you are a person with OCD, but want to attend a talk in the “professionals” or “family and loved ones” track, you are more than welcome to attend any of the conference talks offered!

Here is the agenda for our 2-day conference (click to enlarge any of the graphics):

We are releasing the full conference program soon and do not forget, Super Early Bird Registration opens Friday, August 1st (Online OCD Conference, A Global Event, Registration Opens Friday, August 1st)!

We look forward to seeing you at our Online OCD Conference, a Global Event, on November 15 and 16, 2025! Email us with any questions: info@ocdsocal.org! For more information on our conference, visit www.ocdsocal.org/conference.