The OCD Walk brings together individuals impacted by OCD to connect, share stories, and make an impact. Each year, our community gathers to lift each other up and show those struggling on their road to recovery that they are not alone.

As one of the IOCDF's largest annual fund fundraisers, the OCD Walk is a vital way we show our advocacy and raise funds and awareness of this often misunderstood disorder.

Intrusive thoughts and images can seem loud and sticky, and they keep you from focusing on what is important to you. In this interactive workshop, we will practice a strategy called cognitive defusion, which helps you notice thoughts for what they are and step back from those that are unhelpful, rather than trying to push them away. We will present and demonstrate a menu of defusion exercises, beginning with basic options like thought labeling (for example, “I’m having the thought that something bad will happen if I don’t double check”). We will move to more creative options, like expressing thoughts using only emojis. Each participant will select their three favorite exercises and practice in small groups with a group leader.

Reassurance-seeking rituals in OCD are a common form of compulsive checking aimed at assuaging obsessive doubts. These rituals can be challenging for therapists, patients, and families, as they can be cloaked as seemingly benign behaviors. This session will distinguish between helpful information gathering and compulsive reassurance-seeking and teach ERP techniques to address the latter. As reassurance-seeking rituals manifest in many forms minimally captured by standard symptom checklists, various examples will be provided from across common thematic domains, including mental or memory-based, interpersonal, technology-facilitated, and subtle forms of reassurance-seeking compulsions. Using a functional analysis framework, this interactive session will have participants identify reassurance-seeking behaviors and build creative, targeted response prevention plans for these compulsions using a variety of strategies.

Interactive half-day workshop hosted by the Behavioral Health Services team at Franciscan Children’s in Brighton, MA.

This presentation will provide an overview of anxiety disorders and OCD in youth and the role of parents in the cognitive-behavioral treatment of these common and impairing conditions. It will begin with an overview of current scientific data on the efficacy and limitations of psychosocial treatments for pediatric anxiety disorders and OCD that are primarily or exclusively child-focused. Next, we will describe the core processes of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), as well as why and how it has been adapted as an intervention for parents of youth with a variety of physical and mental health conditions, including anxiety disorders and OCD.

Interactive workshop conducted at the New Hampshire Behavioral Health Summit in Manchester, NH.