OCD Straight Talk

By Chris Leins, MA, NCC, LPCC-SHealth & Fitness Mental Health

OCD Straight Talk episodes

October 01, 2020 You're Not Doing Exposure Therapy If You're Also Doing Compulsions
This is a simple, simple reality. OCD runs on compulsions. In this episode, Chris talks about habituation, and the difference between exposure therapy with compulsions versus that without them. Thanks for tuning in.
16 min
September 21, 2020 The Most Important Question in the Treatment of OCD
Chris discusses the most important question in the effective treatment of OCD: What are your compulsions and how do you find them? The skill of finding compulsions and the determination to prevent them is a strategy that supersedes merely doing exposures for anxiety.
Feel free to reach out with question at [email protected].
17 min
September 10, 2020 Getting Better Matters Less Than Learning How to Get Better
Chris discusses the art of identifying compulsive patterns. Safety behaviors aren't just turning on and off light switches. Compulsive patterns are different for everyone. The question is, What are yours?
15 min
July 22, 2020 I Feel Better; Therefore I ... Am Better?
Chris discusses the concept of therapeutic progress - how do we define it? If you are to judge the efficacy of your therapeutic work on the degree to which you make progress, then the next logical question becomes, What is therapeutic progress?
[email protected]; thetenthousandlakes.com
18 min
July 11, 2020 How Do I Know When My Therapist Doesn't Know What They're Doing?
Chris answers the question, How do I know when my therapist doesn't really know how to treat an anxiety-related disorder? Bottom line is, if you've been in treatment for a little while and haven't made progress, chances are pretty good that your therapist isn't a specialist. Chris speaks to "five pillars" of evidence-based anxiety treatment. But the treatment doesn't work for those who don't work the treatment.
Reach out at [email protected]. and check us out at thetenthousandlakes.com.
20 min
June 09, 2020 Tomato, Tomahto: Is there a Real Difference between Anxiety-Related Disorders
Chris gripes about the treatment-system, and thinks out-loud about the industry-implications of myriad treatment protocols across so many (apparently) different conditions.
20 min
June 04, 2020 The Big "Why?" Of All This
Chris revisits the reasons and convictions behind the OCD Straight Talk podcast, and bears witness to a distinction between generalists and specialists in the field of psychotherapy.
19 min
June 01, 2020 The YBOCS Cheat Sheet
Chris discusses the specifics of how OCD and the anxiety related disorders function comparative to the YBOCS-II, a gold-standard psychometric for measuring OCD. It all hinges on forcibly stopping safety-behaviors.
24 min
May 27, 2020 0% vs. 100%: Certainty is a Mirage
Chris discusses the ineffectiveness of striving after certainty in the context of intrusive thoughts and disordered anxiety.
14 min
May 26, 2020 Not So Certain about Being Certain
Chris discusses certainty as a fact life with or without an anxiety related disorders. It's not our intrusive thoughts or worries that are irrational but the behaviors we engage to regulate them that are irrational.
20 min