Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a notoriously challenging condition to treat, in part because exposure itself is not enough to extinguish the high levels of anxiety.  Research clearly indicates that response prevention, simultaneous with exposure to obsessional thoughts, is needed to eventuate extinction or reduction of anxiety.  EMDR Therapy can potentiate the anxiety reduction through desensitization and reprocessing, making an arduous treatment not only efficacious but time efficient and more comfortable than pure exposure and response prevention.  Additionally, OCD sometimes appears to be a response to developmental trauma sequestered at ages when magical thinking is normal.  In such cases, ego state maneuvers will help access the locus of developmental arrest at the time of trauma and disarm loyalty to the aggressor as manifest in perpetrator introjects, where applicable.

The workshop describes the taxonomy of the disorder, describes the specifics of treatment of OCD with exposure and ritual prevention, and integrates that methodology within the phases of EMDR Therapy as an overarching approach.  It also instructs in the integration of ego state maneuvers as needed to take off the “brakes” of loyalty to the aggressor as part of the phased approach.  The workshop uses lecture, PowerPoint, video and role playing to convey the methods taught.