Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a complex mental health condition that is often misunderstood by society and health professionals alike. The behavioral healthcare industry doesn’t give enough attention to this complex disorder, leaving many people without proper care from compassionate, well-trained professionals. That’s why we created NOCD: the OCD community needed an effective, convenient, and affordable place to access treatment.
To pursue our mission to deliver world-class OCD therapy, we knew that we needed to focus on NOCD Therapists themselves—by providing world-class training, ongoing support, and continuing clinical education for our therapists, we’re able to ensure that NOCD Therapy Members receive the effective, evidence-based care they deserve.
As a way to provide full transparency of how we strive to change the lives of our Members, we’d like to share our training process for NOCD Therapists, the continuous education they receive as they work with NOCD Therapy Members, and how we’re using next-generation technology to offer a standard of care that is unparalleled in the behavioral health industry.
NOCD is solving the shortage of highly trained OCD therapists
When it comes to OCD training at many other behavioral health companies, we’ve found that many licensed therapists who claim to specialize in OCD haven’t received enough training to treat this condition effectively. “The majority of therapy companies, clinics, hospitals, and individual therapists simply don’t provide specialized OCD training or treatment,” says Patrick McGrath, PhD, Chief Clinical Officer at NOCD. “And if they do have any training in OCD, it’s often no more than a couple of slides and a slight mention of what exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy is.”
ERP therapy is considered the most effective form of treatment for OCD, and it’s backed by decades of peer-reviewed research. Around 80% of people with OCD who undergo this evidence-based treatment see a significant reduction in their symptoms—but it requires working with a therapist who has specialized training in ERP and OCD.
That’s why our training program is focused first and foremost on ensuring new therapists thoroughly understand the intricacies of OCD and how to use ERP to treat adults, adolescents, and children with OCD. “In order to join NOCD in the first place, every therapist must demonstrate their skill and understanding in a stringent evaluation process with a highly experienced Clinical Interviewer. And once they join, they begin a months-long training program to gain an in-depth, specialized understanding of OCD and ERP,” Dr. McGrath explains. “Historically, finding therapists with expert training in ERP has been extremely difficult for people with OCD, so this is a crucial part of our training process.”
How we deliver our intensive therapist onboarding program
At NOCD, new therapists go through an initial two-week intensive training program to cover the essentials of OCD and ERP. “Our training really starts at ground zero,” says Chris Novak, MS, LCPC, FACHE, Chief Network Operating Officer at NOCD. “The full training program takes place over several months. To begin, everybody goes through a solid two weeks of lecture-style instruction. Most therapists will tell you that this is almost like a grad school-level class and that they’ve never had such intense training.”
According to Novak, new NOCD therapists can expect to deeply understand OCD, including how to diagnose it, and how to use ERP to help Members manage their symptoms. They also will be taught to diagnose and treat conditions that often co-occur with OCD, such as anxiety, depression, and body-focused repetitive behaviors (these include tics, nail biting, skin picking, and others).
“We take a specific approach to what we treat and how we treat it,” says Jennifer Dalimonte, MSW, LCSW, a NOCD Clinical Training Specialist. “We want to make sure that our therapists can function with a true, evidence-based model and methodologies because we’re really focused on long-term results for our members.”
How our Clinical Leadership team facilitates the next phase of therapist training
After completing the initial two-week onboarding period, NOCD Therapists proceed to the next stage of our months-long training process—far more extensive than the level of OCD training most therapists are able to receive outside of NOCD.
“Our training team is very opposed to uniformity,” says Daniel Kasper-MacMillan, MA, LCPC, a Clinical Training Specialist at NOCD. “Our therapists need to know what they’re doing and feel comfortable working with the unique needs of individual Members. The OCD community is diverse, and therapists need a well-rounded skillset to provide them with the right kind of care.”
We don’t cut any corners in ensuring every NOCD Therapist has the knowledge and skills they need to treat the OCD community, and this requires hands-on work from our clinical leaders. To help therapists take what they learned and apply it in sessions with Members, we require them to pass a rigorous series of Clinical Advising Meetings (CAMs) in which clinical leaders play the role of Members to evaluate therapists’ ability to apply what they’ve learned in training to actual therapy sessions. Only after meeting our high standards in every one of these assessments can therapists proceed to work with Members.
CAMs cover a wide range of topics to ensure our therapists have the deep understanding and all-around skillset required to treat the OCD community. “We want to be sure that people can build rapport, make a diagnosis, and develop a support plan with members,” says Dr. McGrath. “We also want to be sure that they’re able to develop a personalized treatment plan for Members’ individual symptoms, and give OCD education to people in a meaningful and understanding way. The OCD community is extremely diverse, and we make sure our therapists can tailor treatment to the unique needs of all their Members.”
In addition to the above topics, there are also specific CAMs that focus on working with children and adolescents, treating BFRBs with evidence-based therapy, and providing specialized treatment for PTSD.
How we continue to evaluate NOCD Therapists
Once therapists meet the high standard of our CAMs process, we make sure they’re able to continually provide the best possible care for their Members. That’s why we conduct in-depth evaluations of our therapists’ performance at regular intervals, and continue to provide hands-on, personalized support throughout their career at NOCD.
At these set checkpoints, Newendorp says that Clinical Leaders review every part of the NOCD Therapy experience, including how therapists build rapport with Members, message with their Members between sessions, create treatment plans, and ultimately help their Members achieve life-changing results.
The direct feedback we receive from Members is essential to this evaluation process. “We look at the average Member rating for each therapist and the feedback they receive, and we learn if there’s any way we can support the therapist to provide even better care for their Members,” says Newendorp. “We take every piece of Member feedback and determine what’s most important to focus on.” Once Clinical Leaders identify the most impactful areas of focus, they administer personalized coaching sessions for additional training and support.
“It’s important for every therapist to know that we’re committed to helping them be great, and provide truly great care to their Members,” says Dr. McGrath. “And this doesn’t change once they’ve completed the initial training process. Our therapists are always eager to be the best they can be, and we make sure we’re always invested in supporting them.”
NOCD therapists receive ongoing support beyond their training
Every therapist in the NOCD Therapy network has unique abilities that help them change their Members’ lives. By providing ongoing resources and guidance from top experts on our Clinical Leadership team, we can ensure our Members receive a quality of care they can’t find anywhere else.
“With continuing support, therapists have every opportunity to become true specialists in treating OCD,” says Dr. McGrath. “The goal of our training is to give you a powerful framework to approach the work that you do, while enabling you to have your own unique spin on it. We want you to bring your personality and character into what you do, because that can make therapy even more impactful.”
To ensure that every NOCD Therapist is equipped to serve their Members as well as possible, we pair them with a highly experienced OCD expert for one-on-one guidance and mentorship, provide over 20 continuing education courses through NOCD Academy, and offer continuous personal guidance from world-renowned leaders in OCD treatment on NOCD’s Clinical Leadership team.
Hands-on meetings with Clinical Leaders
Every therapist is paired with a highly experienced OCD expert from our Clinical Leadership team, known as a Clinical Operations Manager (COM), allowing them to receive personalized, one-on-one support during training and throughout their career at NOCD. COMs serve as the point of contact if they need assistance with scheduling, caseload management, and administrative tasks. “COMs are considered the therapist’s go-to source for everything,” says Newendorp. “They run a lot of our clinical consultation groups but also make themselves available for one-on-one individual consultations anytime a therapist has questions about a member or any challenges with a particular case.”
NOCD Academy
NOCD Academy is a program that offers individualized continuing education on specific topics that therapists can choose to pursue after they’ve completed their onboarding training. “We have tons of live and home-study continuing education courses,” says Newendorp. “It’s all related to the work we do to serve the OCD community, so the clinical focus is always on OCD, conditions related to OCD, and other specific topics that affect the OCD community.”
NOCD Academy provides a chance for therapists not only to expand their knowledge of the conditions we treat, but also an opportunity to earn official continuing education credits (CEUs) as part of their professional development.
Our Clinical Leaders make themselves available to therapists for ongoing support
At large behavioral health companies—especially those that are entirely virtual—sometimes, it can be difficult to reach out to the leadership team for support. Members of NOCD’s Clinical Leadership team make sure they are available to all NOCD Therapists as much as possible.
“Many therapists I’ve spoken with have said this is the first company they’ve worked at where they’ve met a clinical leader,” says Dr. McGrath. “I think we bring a level of care to the work we do that goes beyond the Members we’re working with, as we want to make sure our therapists have an excellent experience, too.”
“Therapists reach out to me frequently with questions or for support, and every time that they have done that, they’ve been amazed that I got back to them right away,” says Dalimonte. “I think therapists are comfortable truly reaching out and asking for help and are happy with what they receive in response.”
How next-gen technology bolsters our innovative approach to therapist training and member experience
As technology continues to evolve in teletherapy, we’re constantly working on creating next-generation tools that enhance the experiences of our therapists and members. NOTO, our customized electronic health record (EHR) system for our OCD community, has been critical to our innovation—by supporting our therapists with cutting-edge technology, we allow them to focus more on delivering the best possible care to their Members.
The NOTO Engine, which includes the NOCD App designed for our members and the NOTO Portal for therapists, has been essential, allowing us to incorporate new, advanced technologies into the treatment we provide for Members and the support we provide for NOCD Therapists.
As we continue to improve our technology, we make sure that our therapists are part of that journey, too. “We’re partnering hand in hand with our therapists, our software developers, and our designers as a product team,” says Erin Henkel, Chief Design Officer for NOCD. “The product is not the app—it’s the design, clinical, and development team working together to ask, ‘What are the pain points? What can we build to make it better, both for our therapists and our Members?’”
“We build tools specifically to help our therapists have great relationships with their Members,” says Henkel. “These tools minimize administrative tasks, save time, provide access to information—all of which helps therapists really focus on delivering life-changing treatment.”
Many NOCD Therapists have found that the NOTO Portal helps them manage their workload while ensuring no Member is left behind. “NOTO helps me stay organized and stay connected with every one of my Members,” says Landrum. “It’s very different from the previous platforms I have used for doing therapy.”
NOCD’s dedication to the OCD community drives the support we provide our therapists
At NOCD, our commitment to the OCD community motivates every part of the work we do. People with OCD need effective, affordable, and convenient treatment, and this starts with investing in every one of our therapists. From the high standard we set for the therapists we hire to the continuous support we provide throughout their careers at NOCD, we’re making sure that every NOCD Therapist is able to provide life-changing care for their Members.