Beyond the DSM: Neurodiversity-Affirming Approaches to OCD 2 CEUs

This two-hour training offers an in-depth exploration of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) through a neurodiversity-affirming, liberation-oriented lens. Designed for therapists, educators, medical professionals, and community members alike, this course challenges the limitations of traditional DSM-based frameworks and invites participants to reimagine OCD as a contextual, relational, and embodied experience rather than a disorder rooted solely in cognitive pathology.

Participants will examine how the medical model has historically shaped our understanding of OCD—often through Eurocentric, ableist, and individualistic paradigms—and how these narratives continue to influence diagnosis, treatment, and stigma today. Through an intersectional lens, the course explores how race, culture, gender identity, neurotype, religion, trauma history, and systemic oppression can impact how OCD presents and how people are perceived or supported in clinical and communal spaces.

This course highlights the limitations of mainstream interventions such as Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), while also offering a compassionate critique of newer approaches like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Inhibitory Learning Theory (ILT), Inference- Based CBT (I-CBT), and Mindfulness-Based Therapies. Participants will gain insight into how these modalities can be adapted (or reconsidered entirely) when working with neurodivergent clients, especially those who are autistic, ADHDers, or multiply marginalized.

Rather than centering symptom reduction, this course focuses on understanding the function of compulsions, the emotional logic of rituals, and the importance of co-regulation, autonomy, and access. Emphasis will be placed on affirming language, culturally responsive care, and practical tools for creating safer therapeutic and educational environments. Participants will leave with expanded language, deeper context, and more inclusive strategies to support people with OCD, whether in a clinical setting, a classroom, a family system, or a community.