A Pioneer for OCD Care

Local doctor receives Lifetime Achievement Award

MINNEAPOLIS – When someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is looking for help, Dr. Michael Jenike never says no.

Dr. Jenike is one of the country’s leading OCD experts, but remains committed to the patients. He travels thousands of miles to make house calls or does therapy over the phone – much of the time for no charge. He gave out his personal email address on a national talk show, and answered each one of the hundreds of inquiries he received.

For more than four decades, Dr. Jenike has been advancing research, care and treatment for people with OCD.

For his unparalleled contributions to the OCD community, the International OCD Foundation (formerly the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation) awarded Dr. Jenike the Patricia Perkins Lifetime Achievement Award at its 16^th annual conference held this month in Minneapolis. Dr. Jenike is the second recipient of the award, which is named for one of the Foundation’s founders.

Dr. Jenike is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and is the founder and medical director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Institute at McLean Hospital. He is also the founder of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Clinic and Research Program at MGH in Boston.

“Dr. Jenike’s leadership and commitment to the entire OCD community has directly improved the lives of thousands of people affected by OCD and their families,” said Dr. Jeff Szymanski, executive director of the International OCD Foundation. “His model of making house calls and never turning away from someone in need has made Dr. Jenike a role model for the entire mental health community. His mentoring skills have empowered the OCD treatment community to make huge strides in patient care.”

Dr. Jenike has been the chairman of the OCD Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board and a member of its board of directors for the past 15 years.

OCD affects up to 4 million people in the United States, yet there is a shortage of the number of therapists who are trained in Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), the most widely accepted treatment for OCD. According to the OCD Foundation, research has shown that it can take an average of 14 to 17 years from the onset of OCD symptoms for a person to receive effective treatment. Countless therapists and OCD experts behold Jenike as their mentor.

In accepting the award, Dr. Jenike urged therapists and treatment providers to see patients regardless of their ability to pay. “The best way we can give back is to care for those who cannot afford treatment,” Dr. Jenike said. “We have our time and experience and many people are in need of both.”

About The International OCD Foundation:

The International OCD Foundation is the foremost resource about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and related illnesses. It is an international organization that exists to raise awareness among policy makers and the general public about OCD, educate the mental health community about the latest treatments and research, connect people suffering from OCD with treatment providers, and advance research for more effective treatments. Based in Boston, the OCDF has affiliates in Chicago, San Francisco, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Boston, Minnesota and Puerto Rico. The OCDF was founded as the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation in 1986 by a dozen OCD patients at Yale. Twenty-two years later, the organization has an annual $1 million annual operating budget, has granted $2.5 million for treatment research, and is a resource for tens of thousands of people. For more information, visit www.ocfoundation.org.

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