In this episode of The One Inside podcast, Melissa Mose discusses the challenges of being the parent of a child with OCD from both the perspective of having been the parent and as a therapist who works with parents. Family accommodation is a term that describes the tendency of family members to make accommodations for OCD with the intention of helping their child feel better or find some relief.
Click here to listen to the podcast episode.
It is a natural and a loving urge to want to reassure a child who is asking repetitive questions or to facilitate decontamination rituals either by providing them with more soap or washing up yourself or both. It calms things down immediately but I also reinforces the belief that the compulsive rituals are necessary.
From the IFS perspective, Tammy’s explores with me how parents can get to know the parts of themselves who give in to accommodating OCD even when they know that it can make OCD worse and OCD treatment less effective. Many books for parents tell them what to do, and, having read them all I found that as a well-meaning parent and a therapist, I sometimes found myself not following the advice.
It felt too hard, too scary or too mean. IFS allowed me to get in touch with the protective parts of myself that were getting in the way. As a therapist, I use IFS with my clients who have OCD and their parents as well. Understanding OCD as a team of parts that we can befriend makes the work of getting better a more friendly process as well as a more meaningful one.
Self-led parenting complements the SPACE program, which was developed out of research at the Yale Child Study Center on how to help children with anxiety and OCD by working with their parents. The methods work beautifully together, as SPACE clearly outlines what to do, and IFS helps with how to do it when parts get in the way.
