Consumer

Experts Mona Potter, MD and Kathryn Boger, PhD, ABPP recently partnered with ADAA to host an insightful Q&A webinar addressing strategies for parenting children with anxiety and OCD. This blog to addresses the most common themes that emerged from the questions asked during the webinar.

Disastrous news gets delivered in a highly emotional way – often on purpose – and while having strong feelings for the victims of war, floods, earthquakes, mass shootings or horrific accidents is justified, we also have to be logical and in tune with our own emotional processes when interpreting the news.

As the holiday season approaches, many individuals find themselves grappling with challenging memories or experiences that may evoke intense emotions.

How do I know if I have self-harm OCD or if I actually want to kill myself? This is a significant differentiation to make because it can have treatment-impacting and even life-threatening consequences.

Thinking, and even overthinking, is normal but when it becomes a mental health disorder, known as hyperawareness OCD, the person feels completely distracted and out of control.

Almost 75 percent of mental health professionals in the US today are white. That leaves roughly 25 percent as non-white, whether they identify as Black, Indigenous, persons of color or some other race or ethnicity.

Limit the depth of exposure to details. People can consume news in limited ways. In other words, learn what’s happening, then stop there. Avoid the urge for disaster voyeurism. If you have heard the story, you might not need to search for the images or the videos; if you have seen them, there is no need to revisit them over and over.

Choosing a therapist can be an overwhelming decision: there are so many therapists out there, how can you be sure you are choosing someone who is the right fit for you?

The normal reasoning process is what we use throughout our day. It guides us to make inferences about possibility based on trust in our senses and selves. We don’t reason that the microwave is failing and causing a fire unless we smell smoke or see sparks or flames.