Free Screening for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Available Year-Round at Columbia Psychiatry
Imagine waking up to your teenager pacing the hallway past your bedroom for hours every morning to the point of exhaustion. Imagine learning that he feels compelled to say a phrase and repeat it backwards and that this compulsion plagues him for hours every day. He also believes he has “the power of contamination in my hand.” It becomes impossible for him to go to school. You talk to his psychiatrist, who never mentions obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and then “the gates of hell fly open.” This was one family’s ordeal until it found expert help at Columbia University’s Pediatric Anxiety and Mood Research Clinic at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.
October 13–19 is OCD Awareness Week. If you think that you or a family member may have OCD, screening by a mental health professional is the first step to getting treatment. Some general symptoms of OCD are:
- Repeated thoughts or images about things like the danger of germs or the impulse to hurt loved ones
- Rituals like repetitive hand-washing, locking and unlocking of doors, and counting; keeping unneeded items
- Inability to control unwanted thoughts or behaviors
- Spending at least an hour a day on such thoughts and rituals, which cause distress and impair daily functioning
Free OCD screening for adults and children is available year-round.
For pediatric OCD program screening, call 646-774-5793. For information on pediatric OCD treatment and research, go to http://columbiapsychiatry.org/pamrc.
For adult OCD screening, call 646-774-8062. For information on adult OCD treatment and research, go to www.columbia-ocd.org.
Listen to archived shows on OCD basics and tune in to upcoming shows at www.blogtalkradio.com/columbiapsychiatrynyspi.