Welcome to Back from the Abyss.

I'm Dr. Craig Hecock.

This is the second part of a two-part series on OCD.

And if you haven't listened to the last episode where Aaron describes her incredible

battle with contamination OCD, you should stop right here and listen to that. In this episode,

we're going to process and deconstruct what Aaron did. And I feel super fortunate to have my OCD expert, Dr. Amy Indermule, in the room with me.

And I worked originally with Aaron for the first couple years and then referred her on to Amy,

who did some, has continued to do some amazing work with her.

So, Amy, thanks for being here.

It's my pleasure.

Before we start talking about some of the details of Aaron's treatment, which I think

has been a really successful, but also very illuminating and interesting treatment,

I wanted to start with this idea about why is OCD so missed?

Because one thing I've been seeing now in the 15 or so years I've been a psychiatrist,

I'm convinced it's the most missed diagnosis.

I mean, I regularly have people come to my office with quote-unquote anxiety, depression, panic.

And then it becomes pretty clear after a few minutes,

and definitely after we do the Yale Brown obsessive-compulsive scale,

that they've got severe OCD and it's been missed by oftentimes multiple therapists and doctors for years.

Yes.

Do you have any thoughts about that?

I do. I think there's a few things that contribute to that.

...