Webinar: Guilt and OCD: Its Role and Treatment

Recorded Webinar | Lifespan

OCD Fundamentals

While the efficacy of the available treatments for OCD is well documented, many therapists are not well versed in one of the most effective treatments, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which includes Exposure Response Prevention (ERP). The combination of pharmacology along with CBT treatment is considered more effective than pharmacological treatment alone. However, the application of ERP is often complicated by the patient’s feeling of guilt around their obsessions and compulsion, and how it affects their families and supporters. This activity will provide treatment providers with a new definition of guilt that will help them to dismantle the feeling when it shows up during therapy. This activity will also illustrate complimentary CBT skills that will address and reduce the guilt that may bar a patient from engaging with ERP. The ultimate goal of the activity is to increase the effectiveness of ERP and thereby reduce the number of sessions needed to reduce compulsions.

Faculty: Fred Penzel, PhD

Learning Objective 1: Attendees will be able to identify and more clearly understand different manifestations of guilt in five major variants of OCD.

Learning Objective 2: Attendees will be able to recognize the role guilt plays in OCD treatment and offer clients a new working definition of guilt.

Learning Objective 3: Attendees will be able to implement behavioral and cognitive therapy tools and skills that will better enable them to treat pathological guilt that can accompany OCD.