Conference Buzz

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Liz Woolcock, the IOCDF's first international speaker for the Conference Keynote Address on Saturday morning.

Liz- What is the name of your talk and when is it taking place?

Just one – the Keynote Address entitled, "From Private Anguish to Public Advocacy," – to kick off Saturday morning’s events.

What makes this year's Keynote Address unique?Why do you think Conference attendees should attend the Keynote?

My Aussie accent! My personal journey of recovery has been unorthodox to say the least. I am emphasizing the importance of recovery and advocacy in my talk because these are inherently strengths-based rather than deficit-oriented. Those who have experienced OCD in their lives need to appreciate that they too are experts, there is hope and they can recover, whatever this process means for them.

Tell us a little bit about you, what you currently do, and how you became involved in the OCD community.

After hearing about the IOCDF from my eldest brother (who lives in the US), I first became involved with the Foundation by taking leave from my job in Australia to volunteer at their Boston headquarters in 2009 and 2011. I am now an adult mental health educator but have been an elementary school teacher for over ten years.

Have you been to an IOCDF Conference before? What are you looking forward to most at this year's Conference?

I have never had the pleasure so am thrilled to bits about not only attending but actually being invited to speak! I am looking forward to it all!

After taking a look at the Conference schedule (located on pages 4-6 in the Conference Registration Brochure and also on the Conference page of the IOCDF website here), what workshops are you most excited about attending and why?

I am already so impressed by the breadth, depth and expertise on show throughout the whole three days and the investment of time, thought and energy that this represents by those presenting and also the IOCDF as a whole. I am heartened by the fact that the IOCDF values the expertise of those with a lived experience, and the importance of recovery, as much as they do.

Since you are not from the local Chicago area, what are you most excited about doing in Chicago while you are there for the Conference?

As I live in Australia, I am ultra-excited about visiting the US and Chicago in particular. I visited Chicago in 2009 and spent a week at the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning based at the University of Illinois. To be honest, this time around, I am more interested in meeting conference attendees and speakers, listening to and learning from them and establishing personal connections than visiting tourist attractions!

Thanks so much for talking with us, Liz! We are so excited for this year's Keynote Address and cannot wait to hear more about your story.

Check back in again with us this Friday for another Conference Buzz update!

-Christina

Good afternoon! For today's Conference Buzz Blog entry, I will be interviewing Dr. Michael Jenike, who will be speaking in 3 different workshops at the Conference.

How many talks will you be presenting at this year’s Annual Conference? What is the name of your talk(s) and when is it taking place?

I will be presenting at “Ask The Experts Goes Live!” with Jim Claiborn, PhD on Saturday July 28^th from 11:15 AM-12:45 PM, “Medication: A Question and Answer Session” on Friday July 27^th from 1:45 PM-3:45 PM, and “Sudden Onset OCD in Children: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Therapy for PANDAS with Susan Swedo, MD, Eric Storch, PhD, and Susan Dailey on Friday July 27^th from 4:00 PM-5:30 PM.

What makes your talk(s) unique? Why do you think Conference attendee’s should attend your talk(s)?

I have been presenting the Medication Q & A workshop for over 20 years. It is one of the main treatment updates for OCD. When I was at the IOCDF Conference in Boston in the 1990’s, I actually presented the Keynote Address. After the Keynote, there were many questions from attendees, which ended up taking over 12 hours to answer. I decided that for next year’s conference, I would run a 3-4 hour Medication Q&A, and now the talk is down to 2 hours.

In regards to the PANDAS talk that I am presenting on, there is still so much unknown about infection causing mental illness. I believe that it could be way more common than we had originally thought, in disorders such as anorexia, Tourettes syndrome, and psychosis. In some cases, the person would be diagnosed with strep, and then the next day not being able to go to school, unable to eat, and displaying OCD symptoms. PANDAS research is the most important thing I am involved in right now, and I receive more than 20 emails per day about PANDAS cases. If you treat the OCD with antibiotics it might help with lifelong mental illness- for example, in one of the PANDAS cases I am currently treating, I started the individual on antibiotics and they got increasingly better. From our research so far, we are also seeing that SSRI’s could make PANDAS worse. When I ask adults what they suspect started their OCD, some mention infections.

Tell us a little bit about you, what you currently do, and how you became involved in the OCD community.

I became involved in the OCD community when I was running an Alzheimer’s clinic and I had my first patient with OCD. At first, I thought it was a very rare disorder, but quickly found out how common it really was. I once had a patient in Canada who attempted to commit suicide and shot himself in the head. When he recovered from the gunshot wound, most of his OCD was gone. The producers from Larry King called me and asked me to come on the show with my patient and talk about OCD. After the airing of the show, my secretary was receiving hundreds of calls per day for many weeks about OCD. From then on, I began doing research, and eventually started the OCD Institute at McLean Hospital.

How many conferences have you been to and what is one memorable experience you’ve had?

I have been to every Annual Conference except for 3 or 4. My first Keynote Address was at the Boston Annual Conference in 1995 and it took only 45 minutes, as that was all we knew about OCD at the time. Now, with everything we know about OCD, we could talk for years.

After taking a look at the Conference schedule, what workshops are you most excited about attending and why?

I am going to try to go to the PANDAS presentations, as well as some of the Hoarding talks. As the Chair of the IOCDF Scientific Advisory Board, I have meetings all day long so it is difficult for me to go to workshops. I actually don’t learn the best during lectures, but through readings instead.

Are you traveling to Chicago for the Conference, or are you from the local Chicago area? If you are not from the local Chicago area, what are you most excited about doing in Chicago while you are there for the Conference? If you are local to Chicago, what do you recommend that visitors check out in Chicago during their stay?

I’ve always disliked Chicago due to the outside airport, but at the last IOCDF Conference in Chicago, I was shocked at how beautiful the city really is. I am excited to go to the parks and see all of the other outside attractions the city has to offer.

Thanks for speaking with us, Dr. Jenike! Check back in next week for more interviews with our Conference speakers. Have a great weekend!

Hello everyone and welcome to this year's Conference Buzz Blog for the 19th Annual IOCDF Conference in Chicago!

First, let me tell you a little bit about me...

My name is Christina and I am the International OCD Foundation’s Social Media Intern for this year's Annual Conference. This is my second year working on the Conference Blog. Last year the blog was about the 2011 Annual Conference in San Diego, and this year it will be about the Annual Conference in Chicago! Here is a little more information about me: I graduated from Endicott College in 2009 with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Minor in Human Services, and in May 2011 received a Masters degree in Counseling Psychology from Northeastern University. While studying at Northeastern, I completed my Pre-Master's Practicum at McLean Hospital's OCD Institute and began to realize that I wanted to specialize in OCD. Under the supervision of Dr. Jason Elias, I started to get involved in OCD research, and am currently working as a Community Mental Health Counselor at the OCD Institute at McLean. I am almost onto my second year of supervision with Denise Egan-Stack, LMHC to work towards my goal of being a Licensed Mental Health Counselor by Spring 2013!

What will we feature in this year's Conference Buzz Blog?

As Social Media Intern here at the IOCDF, I have worked hard interviewing some of the speakers at the 2012 IOCDF Conference for a blog about the Annual Conference. We wanted to do this blog to give people an insider's look at what goes on at the conference, including the workshops and panels, support groups, activities for kids and teens, evening events, fun things to do in Chicago, and more! In addition, we also wanted to give readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into all that goes into the preparation for the conference here at the IOCDF headquarters in Boston, MA. The IOCDF Annual Conference is a joint effort, and a place where everyone - including patients, families, professionals, and researchers - can collaborate and help one another, so we want everyone to be involved in the process.

Readers of the blog can expect interviews from the speakers of various presentations and workshops at the conference, as well as some insiders from local attractions in Chicago. The interviews will be posted on the blog every Monday and Friday, and will also feature behind the scenes updates about conference planning from the IOCDF staff, tips for tourists and families on vacation, as well as some live blogging from the actual conference in July. You will be able to find the blog on the conference page on the IOCDF Conference website (www.ocfoundation.org/Conference, on our Facebook page and Twitter page, and on the IOCDF homepage.)

For my first blog entry, I will be interviewing Dr. Michael Jenike, chair of the IOCDF's Scientific Advisory Board and speaker for many workshops at the Conference- be sure to check back this Friday to hear from Dr. Jenike! If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us here at the Foundation- we would love to hear from you. Also, if you are interested in reading about last year's Conference, take a look at the archived entries from the 2011 Conference Buzz Blog on the right-hand side of the blog.

Looking forward to seeing you all in Chicago in July!

-Christina

Good Morning Conference Buzz Readers!

I had the honor of meeting two wonderful women from Ghana at the conference yesterday. Their names are Angela and Jane and both are Lawyers in Ghana, with an amazing story. Jane currently works at the International Federation of Women Lawyers in Ghana , and received her Masters at Georgetown Law in the US. Jane works to promote rights of Women and Children in Ghana, and is an advocate for womens empowerment. Angela is also a lawyer who runs a non profit called the Ark Foundation in Ghana, which focuses on abused women and children. Angela runs the first and only battered women shelter in Ghana and was trained at the University of Ghana Law School with her classmate Jane.

Angela reported her OCD started around the age of 17. She was misdiagnosed and lived with scrupulosity, her main symptom of OCD for 23 years until she was properly diagnosed when she saw a clinical psychologist in Ghana. This psychiatrist knew about OCD and started Angela on medication and began therapy. Soon after, this psychiatrist called Angela and said there is a women she wants her to help. It was Jane. Jane first developed OCD at the age of 26 in law school and was able to function but reported the OCD was always there. Jane reported her major bought of OCD started two years ago and went to a psychiatrist who connected her to Angela.

When Angela and Jane reconnected they wept for hours. They both had lived with OCD for over two decades alone and in silence, and now they had a name for their disorder and someone to connect with. Both women never would have guessed the other had OCD. Angela was now on the road to recovery and was helping Jane. Both women did their own ERP through research online and readings. Angela and Jane reported a huge stigma connected to mental illness in Ghana, and most mental health professionals use psychoanalysis. So together these two women did there own therapy together, and also created a retreat for others with mental illness in Ghana.

Angela came to Jane and said she found the IOCDF Conference in San Diego and they should go, the only thing stopping them was the funds. The women wrote letters, passed cups around, received funding from individual, and finally the United Nations Developmental Program funded them to go to the conference. The UNDP decided to fund their trip to San Diego so they could gain knowledge and the OCDI and bring it back to Ghana. 

The women built a therapeutic center in Ghana, called Beautiful Minds, where women can go with OCD and related disorders and get away from their homes to a quiet, peaceful place with support for them. Angela and Jane are going to spend the rest of their lives working on Beautiful Minds. Both women said they lived half of their lives suffering in silence and now they want to spend the rest of their lives giving back and helping others. In addition to Beautiful Minds, Angela and Jane want find the money to fund training to send their psychiatrist to a Behavior Therapy Training Institute to come home to Ghana and train others. The two women also want to create support groups in Ghana with OCD so they can help others. Angela and Jane have come a long way and continue to help others in need!

Good Morning Conference Buzz Readers!

The Keynote Address for the Conference this year was "Putting OCD into Perspective: A Mother and Son's Story of Hope" given by Christopher and Elizabeth Trondsen. The address was held this morning, and attended by many! Their story was incredibly touching as well as educational for many of our conference attendees. The address was their personal story about Chris' struggle with OCD, which began as early as age 7. With hard work, determination, and the help of OCD specialists, and support of his mom, Chris was able to get his OCD under control. Since his completion of treatment, Chris was able to go from being home bound due to 18 hour a day crippling obsessions and compulsions, to graduating college, going to work and getting his life back. He has since been active in helping others get information and treatment for OCD. Chris' story was so inspiring for everyone to hear and was the highlight of the day!

 Good Morning Conference Buzz Readers!

Yesterday afternoon I attended a presentation given by Perrie Merlin, LICSW, who is a senior social worker at the OCD Institute at McLean Hospital. This presentation was about the ideal goal for family functioning, especially when the family member is not ready for treatment. Perrie did a great job illustrating family accommodation behaviors--such as providing reassurances, helping with completing rituals, and changing personal routines for the family member. Perrie connected these behaviors to a "Wizard of Oz theme" , and to families living in "Oz" , and the "Yellow Brick Road" to treatment. You may find your "Yellow Brick Road" through self education by reading about OCD and effective treatment . Another way to begin the "Yellow Brick Road" is to Join the International OCD Foundation!, and attend the OCDF conference. Lastly, one could find a supportive family therapist, and join a support group in your area!

Hello Blog Readers! 

This afternoon I attended a great presentation titled "OCD Treatment with Children and Teens: How Does it Differ from Adults?" This presentation was given by Felicity Sapp, Ph.D, Eric Storch, Ph.D., and Thröstur Björgvinsson, Ph.D., all who are highly recognized in the OCD field. This presentation was an introductory level talk for therapists, and I personally took away a great amount of information about how to properly treat children and adolescents with OCD. The speakers did a great job explaining Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as well as Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) with young children, as well as highlighting two case presentations. The highlight of this talk for me was realizing that with CBT, therapists should use language, and metaphors to compare situations that the child can understand. For example, one could explain OCD as the "bully" or the "bad guy", which they have to fight back!

Hope everyone is enjoying the Conference, and sunny San Diego! There are many other great presentations this weekend and I hope to bring you a few more highlighted on the Blog!!