A participant of BBC Three’s ‘Extreme OCD Camp’ in 2013, Jack has extensively written and spoken about OCD in the national press and TV, including Time to Change, BBC Breakfast and The Victoria Derbyshire Show. Now the CEO of UK-wide disability charity, The Accessful Foundation, Jack is the author of ‘Life On The Other Side’, a two-in-one book about recovery (with proceeds to OCD Action) and a public speaker and business consultant.
A talk on some of the things I wish I’d done differently as a young person, how your version of recovery can be caught (even if you think it can’t), how to avoid the added pressures of ‘enjoying the best years of your life’ and how building a team around you can be one of the greatest things you ever do.
Scarlett is a trustee of The BDD Foundation. Since having children, Scarlett has been a stay-at-home mother of four, one of whom has suffered with BDD since 2010. She has had to fight the NHS system to obtain the treatment her daughter so desperately required. Scarlett has gained an extremely close insight into BDD and the struggles of living with and supporting a BDD sufferer.
When a young person experiences BDD, it not only affects them but their parents, carers, family and friends. In this talk, Scarlett will share her insights from parenting a child with BDD. She will discuss the impact this had on familial relationships before, during, and after her daughter Alanah accessed treatment. She will then host a discussion for other parents and answer questions based on her own insights and lived-experience.
Elif is a Clinical Psychologist at the National and Specialist OCD, BDD and Related Disorder Clinic at the Maudsley Hospital. She provides specialist assessment and evidence-based treatment for children and adolescents with OCD and BDD. Elif is a peer-reviewed author and has a strong interest in developing and delivering effective psychological interventions for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Elif will focus on understanding BDD in young people and the treatment approach taken. The first part of the talk will provide an overview of BDD symptoms, share key facts on the condition, and discuss why BDD remains underdiagnosed. The second part will provide information on how to access help and what to expect from assessment and evidence-based treatment for BDD in children and young people.
Gazal is a Senior Clinical Psychologist at the service, providing specialist treatment to children and young people with OCD. She is the diversity representative and leading on initiatives to improve the experience of families from ethnic minorities and considering aspects of diversity in OCD assessment and treatment. She has also appeared on BBC Radio 4 and Talk Radio to myth bust misconceptions around OCD.
Transition from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to Adult Mental Health services can be a challenging time for young people and their families. This talk will describe specialist adult services for OCD and BDD as well as non-specialist community adult services, and explain the process of referral and funding. There will also be discussion on the similarities and differences between CAMHS and Adult Mental Health services and top tips for parents. The purpose of this talk is to give parents information about specialist and non-specialist adult services so that they can best navigate the transition from CAMHS to adult services for their child.
Chloë is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Team Lead for the service, overseeing treatment for the most severe, treatment-resistant cases of young people with OCD. She is pioneering Multi-Family Group work with families of young people with OCD. With 2 colleagues, she published the clinic’s treatment manual and workbook OCD – Tools to help young people fight back! Turner, Krebs and Volz. OCD and related disorders cause high levels of distress and anxiety and it is not uncommon for children and young people suffering from OCD to become aggressive and challenging at times. Parents may report that this is “out of character” and it can be highly distressing for family members to have to witness and manage these episodes of challenging behaviour. This talk aims to help parents to understand what might be going on for their children and to help them think through how best to approach these situations.
Georgina is an Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor of Young People’s Mental Health and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, at University College London. Her research interests include developing novel, evidence-based methods for delivering cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) in young people, and understanding factors that interfere with recovery in order to inform the development of new treatment approaches.
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a highly effective treatment for OCD and BDD, but young people often require support from parents to get the most out of therapy. This talk will cover some of the factors that can interfere with young people fully engaging with CBT, and we will discuss what parents can do to promote engagement. The talk will also address some of the common concerns that families have about remotely-delivered therapy, which has become commonplace over the last 15 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
We hear too often that people with BDD fall through the gaps between primary and secondary care and are left unable to access this treatment which is vital for recovery from BDD. As a charity, we responded to the inconsistencies in statutory mental health care provision by establishing a Structured Support Group (Now known as Overcoming BDD Programme), where we deliver evidence-based CBT in a group format online. We also enable peer support both between participants of the group and from our team of Peer Facilitators who all have their own experiences of BDD. The pilot phase ran from 2018-2021, where we conducted three iterations of the pilot project. We collected lots of feedback from both our participants and our Peer Facilitators, so that we could evaluate its success and make improvements. This talk will explore the role of peer support in the BDD Foundation’s online CBT-BDD programme and will provide a chance to hear from former participants on how accessing peer support has been so vital for their recovery.
Hannah works at the BDD Foundation co-ordinating the peer-delivered group-CBT project for BDD. She is a PhD researcher at Queen Mary, University of London where she studies culturally inclusive prevention strategies for eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder – both of which she has lived experience of.
Alanah has worked for the BDD Foundation as a structured support group facilitator. She is currently finishing her two-year MSc in Developmental Psychology and Clinical Practice at UCL and The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. Alanah has lived experience of BDD and has raises awareness about BDD through newspaper/magazine articles, documentaries, podcasts and as a speaker for the BDD Foundation Conference in 2016.
Nicole is a child, community and educational psychologist; yoga teacher and yoga therapist. She is a trustee of the BDD Foundation and director of the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance. Nicole has authored the books ‘False Bodies, True Selves: Moving Beyond Appearance-Focused Identity Struggles and Returning to the True Self’ and ‘Bodies Arising: Fall in Love with your Body and Remember your Divine Essence’.
‘Narrative approaches view mental health struggles, including BDD, as a bid to make sense of painful, oppressive life experiences through ‘thin’ stories told about the self to the self.
In this session – which will appeal to people with lived experience, loved ones and therapists – we will consider how narrative approaches can be supportive in BDD including a short exploration of creative writing and reading to aid recovery and healing.’
As we return back to “the new normal” since COVID-19, it is natural to want to seek safety and hide from the things that scare us. However, it is crucial that we all embrace our discomfort and remember that fear only gets stronger when we resist, avoid or fight it. During this presentation, participants will gain powerful skills and tools to help them lean into their fears and practice self-compassion, instead of self-judgment and self-punishment.
Kimberley is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the State of California and the founder of CBTschool.com, an online platform that provides courses for those with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviours who do not have access to mental health care. Kimberley is the host of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast.
“BDD used to take up about 95% of my being. Now, the parts of me that bring me joy are bigger than my BDD.”
Now a holistic therapist, Rachel is our first guest from across the pond, and hopefully the first of many! In this episode, she shares her experience of BDD and how everything from working at a cat hotel to learning ballroom dancing has helped her to manage the disorder and find joy.
You can download the transcript for this episode here:
