Update OCD Intensive

[lynn]

Just got home from day 3/session 6 of the OCD 5day intensive clinical trial. Very interesting, and even a bit hopeful. The therapist is a grad student, which at first made us depressed and discouraged, but apparently all the cases are discussed by the entire group of students and instructors every day, and, in fact, this guy is pretty good. Lately DS' worst symptom has been anxiety over school, intensifying to the point that he can't even start his homework, can't study for a test, and is angry at any school based comment of mine. This accelerates to hitting me when I try to intervene and get him started.

 

As is so often the case, our current model is that it is the mother (me) who is deeply involved in the OCD and must be extracted. The therapist started on the first day to try to peel off parts of the symptoms to eradicate them. We have now gotten to the point that DS sat down today by himself and did a specified amount of homework with no coaching, no hitting, no crying, no anger, and allowed me to do my own thing outside of the house without going into panic phase. Admittedly, this is low stress, it is vacation and the homework is not due tomorrow, but this is still more than I expected so soon. Anyway, just wanted to note that the intensive seems to be a good way to go for us, since the OCD behavior is so ingrained that it is hard to move with weekly sessions. Good to see clinical trials for things other than more and more drugs too!

[MomWithOCDSon]

Lynn --

 

Congratulations on the great progress. Can you tell us who's sponsoring/hosting the Intensive and where? Is it a trial that's being conducted at various sites around the country, for instance? Thanks!

[lynn]

Hi Nancy--

 

I posted about this a few weeks ago--I copied it below. Just want to add that the astonishing things keep happening. Yesterday DH and DS got into a towering fight about when DS should start homework, and DS calmly told DH that he needed to work on his homework schedule first. DH kept yelling, and DS got sucked into the fight, but then, 5 minutes later he had used the new relaxation tools the therapist had given him and walked out of his room and re-engaged DH by showing him the HW schedule and telling DH that it was his (DS') responsibility to get it done. I was floored! Usually that kind of argument would be enough to destroy any chance of getting work done at all, and would have included a number of angry attacks on all of us along with destructive avoidance mechanisms that would have everyone miserable. Instead, we got a friendly kid who went in and read Romeo and Juliette and found the paradoxical statements all by himself!

 

Here's my earlier post:

"Another thing that I am trying is an ERP intensive. Right now Fordham is doing a clinical trial on a one week intensive ERP for OCD kids. The control is that you have to wait a month between the initial evaluation and the therapy trial. The therapy consists of on hour therapy sessions per day for a week. We are doing it during winter break (President's Day.) They can also arrange it so the child gets a session at 7 am, goes to school, then comes back for the second session after school (this would give me an anxiety attack.) They also do the initial evaluation by Skype so if you lived far away you would only have to come for the therapy, not the initial evaluation. The Skype thing was interesting. It is apparently also given in Tampa and the Mayo Clinic.

 

I'll post about how it goes. The Fordham trial link is here: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01194076."

[MomWithOCDSon]

Oh yeah, thanks Lynn. I remember that earlier post now. And I'd read about that in the IOCDF newsletter, as well. I think Dr. Storch is heading up the Florida team. Cool! May your DS's progress continue!

[mommakath]

We have done intensive with Dr. Storch when he was at UF / SHANDS in Gainesville and now in Tampa. Both programs are TOP NOTCH! He also has a SKYPE therapy program which is wonderful for follow-up sessions - especially when you live a distance away. We have done the group that is now at Shand's and they are still great. Both programs have fellows and grad students.