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Medical Author:

Roxanne Dryden-Edwards, MD

Roxanne Dryden-Edwards, MD

Dr. Roxanne Dryden-Edwards is an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist. She is a former Chair of the Committee on Developmental Disabilities for the American Psychiatric Association, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and Medical Director of the National Center for Children and Families in Bethesda, Maryland.

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Medical Editor:

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, Chief Medical Editor

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, Chief Medical Editor

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stöppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology.

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As many people with OCD also experience dissociation, and dissociation is sometimes treated using hypnosis, that intervention is being explored as a treatment for OCD sufferers. For individuals with OCD that also have trichotillomania, it may be that specifically targeting the sufferer's tendency toward perfectionism is a particularly helpful therapeutic technique.

Given that many more people with OCD are seeking behavior therapy than there are enough trained mental-health professionals to provide it, an alternative that has been developed to therapist-guided behavior therapy is computer-guided treatment. While it is thought to be somewhat less effective than care that is directly provided by a therapist, it can be helpful when clinician-guided therapy is not available.

A newer psychological intervention for OCD is mindfulness therapy. It involves teaching OCD sufferers about meditative breathing, getting more in touch with how their body responds to stress, as well as being more mindful of how to manage their OCD symptoms on a daily basis.

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