The TLC Foundation is currently seeking volunteers to participate in research studies regarding BFRBs, or Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors, that include trichotillomania, skin picking disorder, chronic nail biting, cheek biting and similar behaviors. By participating in BFRB research, you will help researchers develop better ways to diagnose and treat BFRB disorders. There are several internet-based surveys and regional participation opportunities that need your help! Click here to go to TLC’s website for full details.

The iCounselor OCD iPhone app teaches you skills to resist obsessions and compulsions! All material was written by a licensed psychotherapist (LCSW) with twenty-five years of counseling experience. This app is compatible with the iPhone or iPod Touch. Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later. For more information and to download the app, go to http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icounselor-ocd/id338431800?mt=8.

“40 BAGS IN 40 DAYS” is a Facebook page where you can face a challenge designed to help you get the clutter out of your home. You can have a bag, less than a bag, or more than one bag a day. Furniture or big items count, as well as boxes. Heck it all counts. 🙂 The overall goal is to tackle your home a spot at a time, GET RID OF STUFF, pace yourself, and be detached. Good luck!

OCD Challenge is an online, interactive, behavioral program designed to help people suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The program was built by psychologists who are leaders in the field of behavior therapy and have a specialization in the area of OCD. OCD Challenge has three Modules: Assessment, Gaining Awareness and Intervention. Users will be guided through the Modules and taught skills and strategies for managing their OCD behavior. OCD Challenge uses the principles of exposure and response prevention (the treatment of choice for OCD) to help the user to confront and challenge their OCD. OCD Challenge is not therapy and there is not a therapist on the other end of the computer telling you what to do. Instead, OCD Challenge is a program built to interact with the user in a way that is interesting, useful, and moves the user toward change. OCD Challenge is offering 6 months free use of its website with the promo code “POMA” to anyone who is interested. You can access the website at ocdchallenge.com. For a virtual tour of the website go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzR88HLawAg.

OCD can destroy lives without proper treatment. But that’s okay because the acronym is funny, edgy, and makes for great jokes on silly and cute holiday sweaters. Many individuals and organizations have shared their disappointment and frustration with a Christmas sweater available now in Target stores across the US that declares whoever wears it a sufferer of “OCD: Obsessive Christmas Disorder.” Let’s help Target understand why this OCD sweater is more than just a silly joke. Continue messaging, tweeting, and emailing Target to let them know how their sweater furthers the stigma and obstacles OCD sufferers too often face in accessing treatment. Get in the holiday spirit by tweeting @Target with a photo of you in your favorite ugly Christmas sweater to show Target you’d rather your holiday spirit come dressed in hideous shades of red and green with way too many details and embellishments rather than an inaccurate and dismissive message about OCD. Let Target know this holiday season, you’d rather wear ugly sweaters over lame ones.

OCD is not curable, but it is manageable. The purpose of this personal story is to document one human’s struggle with a very real, and surprisingly common, mental health condition. To read this story, click here to go to NAMI’s website.

Researchers at Butler Hospital and Alpert Medical School of Brown University are seeking adults (18 or older) to participate in an online study evaluating a mobile smartphone app as a self-help treatment for OCD. Each participant will receive free access to the mobile app and be asked to complete four online surveys over 12 weeks. If you are interested in learning more or to find out if you are eligible, call 401-455-6541. Click here to download a flyer containing all the information.

Darin Dougherty, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and the OCD Institute at McLean Hospital is featured in a recent MIT Technology Review article for his work treating OCD with electric stimulation (MIT Technology Review, October 2015). To read the article, click here.

Written for OCD Awareness Week as part of a collaboration between The Mighty and the IOCDF, people with OCD seize the opportunity to share what OCD is really like, outside of often negative or inaccurate portrayals of OCD that tend to dominate news cycles (The Mighty, October 2015). To read the article, click here.

A study of mental illness literary by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) in Singapore found that nine out of ten respondents believe that those with a mental disorder “could get better if they wanted to,” while half also saw mental illness as a sign of “personal weakness.” Researchers say this stigmatizing mindset often prevents people from seeking treatment (Straits Times, October 2015). To read the article, click here.