Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can be paralyzing and severely affect one’s life. Successfully diagnosing and treating OCD in the teen years gives young people their lives back by helping them meaningfully re-engage with friends, school, and life in general rather than losing hours a day to awful and unwanted thoughts. 

In this episode, Jill talks with OCD expert and clinical psychologist Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona, author of The ACT Workbook for Teens with OCD: Unhook Yourself and Live Life to the Full by Patricia Zurita Ona, Psy.D.about this new resource that combines the best of Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to successfully treat teens who struggle with OCD. 

Listen and Learn:

What is Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)?Why combine ERP and ACT for teens with OCD?Fun exercises like Scrambling and Singing Your Obsessions to engage teens  Why this OCD expert adds “choice points” to every exposure session  

About Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona

Dr. Patricia E. Zurita

Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona, or “Dr. Z.,” is a licensed clinical psychologist, founder of the East Bay Therapy Center in Walnut Creek, California, and author The ACT Workbook for Teens with OCD. She is also a faculty member at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California and has authored Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster: ACT for the Emotionally Sensitive and coauthored Parenting a Troubled Teen: Manage Conflict and Deal with Intense Emotions with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Dr. Zurita Ona specializes in treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), trauma, anxiety and emotion regulation issues and works with children, teens, and adults. She is passionate about helping her clients unhook from fear to live the lives they were meant to live. Dr. Zurita Ona was born and raised in Bolivia and received her Psy.D. from the Wright Institute.

Resources

actbeyondOCD.com: Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona’s online class for people struggling with OCDThe ACT Workbook for Teens with OCD: Unhook Yourself and Live Life to the Full by Patricia Zurita Ona, Psy.D.Living Beyond OCD: An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Workbook for OCD by Patricia Zurita Ona Psy.D. (published in October 2020)Parenting a Troubled Teen: Manage Conflict and Deal with Intense Emotions with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy by Patricia Zurita Ona Psy.D., Matthew McKay, Ph.D., and Kirk Stroshal, Ph.D.Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster: ACT for the Emotionally Sensitive by Patricia Zurita Ona Psy.D. 

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