Leading Teen Mental Health Hospital Observes OCD Awareness Week
Salt Lake City, UT (PRWEB) October 16, 2015 -- ViewPoint Center, a teen mental health hospital for young people ages 13-17, offers its support for OCD Awareness Week, which occurs the week of October 11-17.
Obsessive compulsive disorder, also known as OCD, is a mental health issue affecting 3.3 million Americans.
Over the years, ViewPoint Center has offered its support to hundreds of teens dealing with mental illness and helped these teens overcome the stigma oftentimes attached to mental illness. Due to this experience, ViewPoint Center believes it is important to boost awareness of OCD.
“As is the case with most forms of mental as well as physical illness, the sooner treatment is pursued, the greater the chances of recovery. Teens have a life to live outside of the confines of mental illness,” says Christine Paegle APRN, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner at ViewPoint Center. “Pretending something like OCD doesn't exist won't make it go away.”
According to ViewPoint Center, symptoms of OCD may include a pattern of repeated and hyper-focused behavior, which, when interrupted, result in resistance, irritability or distress. Increased isolation and withdrawal from friends and family also often occur, as the obsessions and compulsions demand more and more time, attention and energy.
At ViewPoint Center, treatment for OCD begins with assessing the client to determine how ready they are to challenge the obsessive thoughts leading to their compulsions, and to make sure that they have a healthy arsenal of coping skills to help weather the heightened anxiety that often occurs in response to treatment.
“Our therapists often start with an approach called motivational interviewing as a way of determining readiness for change and establishing priorities for and with the client,” comments Paegle. “Different forms of Cognitive behavioral therapy follow, including DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention). These can then be used according to the mutually agreed upon goals between therapist and clients.”
For parents of teens with OCD, working closely with a therapist to develop and implement a treatment plan is key, and consistency between caregivers is also important. Parents can show support by normalizing the emotions associated with OCD, while helping their teen distance themselves from the thoughts that drive OCD.
The effects of OCD can last throughout a teen’s lifetime and, left unchecked, may lead to other problems like depression, suicidal thoughts, and substance abuse.
“Teens struggling with mental illnesses like OCD may feel isolated and put into a box because of the stigma surrounding mental illness,” says Judith Jacques, M.Ed, Executive Director of ViewPoint Center. “At ViewPoint Center, we treat every teen as an individual, providing individualized diagnosis and treatment.”
For more information about how ViewPoint Center can help your teen dealing with OCD, please call 855-290-9682.
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ViewPoint Center, a teen mental health hospital for teens ages 13-17, is located just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. With a program lasting 4-9 weeks, ViewPoint Center provides superior assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and stabilization for teens struggling with mental and behavioral issues such as suicidal ideation, anxiety disorders, and eating disorders. In a safe, personalized environment, ViewPoint helps teens focus on the healing process. For more information about ViewPoint Center, please call 855-290-9682.
John Gordon, ViewPoint Center, http://www.viewpointcenter.com/, +1 (617) 792-4121, [email protected]
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