Price: $199 USD
Join us for this transformative three-part series!
Created for professionals across all areas of practice
3-part weekly online series
Features 3 speakers
Includes three 90-minute live presentations (recordings available for 120 days)
Runs from July 2nd to July 16th, 2025 (see details below)
Approved for 4.5 CPEUs by the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR)
This transformative three-part series is designed to deepen clinicians' understanding of the complex relationship between obsessive-compulsive disorder and eating. With a focus on OCD, OCPD, and autism, the series explores how distressing internal experiences, compulsive behaviors, and perfectionism can significantly shape a person’s relationship with food. OCD’s compulsions and intrusive thoughts may show up in rituals around eating, checking behaviors, or fears tied to “safe” foods. At the same time, OCPD’s rigidity, perfectionism, and need for control can drive strict dietary rules and highly structured eating routines.
This series invites clinicians to explore these patterns through a new lens—one grounded in the neurodiversity paradigm, disability justice, attachment theory, and polyvagal theory. You’ll gain insight into how OCD differs from other neurotypes, such as autism while recognizing areas of overlap without pathologizing neurodivergent experiences. We’ll unpack how to move beyond behavior-focused models and toward a more compassionate, curious approach—one that restores client agency, supports values-based experimentation, and honors the complexity of each person’s internal eating experience.
Clinicians supporting clients with OCD must be equipped with neurodiversity-affirming, compassionate frameworks that move beyond symptom management to address safety, autonomy, and healing. Attendees will gain concrete tools and insight into how to create more accessible therapeutic spaces, support clients with persistent thinking styles, and foster self-trust and nourishment without relying on compliance or control. We invite you to be part of this rich and necessary conversation
Speaker: Danielle Aubin, LCSW/LICSW
Date and Time: July 2nd 2025 12:00-1:30 pm ET
This presentation explores the complex interplay between Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), and relationship with food, with a focus on the psychological role of control. We begin with a foundational overview of OCD and OCPD—highlighting their key symptoms, cognitive patterns, and behavioral manifestations—emphasizing how both conditions, while distinct, share a common thread of rigid control.
The session examines how OCD’s compulsions and intrusive thoughts can influence eating rituals, while also addressing how OCPD’s perfectionism, inflexibility, and need for order may shape restrictive dietary practices and structured eating routines.
The goal of this presentation is to equip participants with a deeper understanding of how OCD and OCPD-related control dynamics can influence food behaviors, improve screening and communication, and strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration with mental health professionals when needed.
Learning Objectives:
Recognize the core features of both Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), particularly in how they manifest in food and eating-related behaviors
Identify disordered eating behaviors that may stem from or overlap with OCD and OCPD, enabling more nuanced assessments and timely referrals.
Understand how control-based coping drives obsessive-compulsive traits in OCD and OCPD, and apply this insight to enhance compassionate care for clients with disordered eating.
Danielle Aubin, LCSW/LICSW (she/they) is an AuDHD (Autistic+ADHD) therapist with over 14 years of experience providing neurodivergent-affirming care. With lived experience of OCD, OCPD, and an Eating Disorder, Danielle brings deep personal insight and compassion to her work. Her clinical approach is person-centered, somatic, trauma-informed, and existential. anielle specializes in working with Autistic adults, many with co-occurring OCD and also develops and delivers CE trainings on a variety of intersecting topics including Autism, ADHD, OCD, OCPD and more.
Speaker: Reece Thomas, CMHC, LMHC (they/them)
Date and Time: July 9th 2025 12:00-1:30 pm ET
This presentation will explore reconceptualizations of OCD informed by the neurodiversity paradigm, disability justice principles, attachment and polyvagal theory. This exploration will provide a foundation for exploring similarities and differences between autism and OCD as neurotypes and how a depathologizing lens informs conceptualization and planning.
Many traditional approaches to OCD lack consideration for how autistic nervous systems habituate differently than allistic ones, which has important implications for approaches to care and support provided. We will explore the juxtaposition between the flexibility encouraged in approaches focused solely on behavioral management of symptoms of OCD, and the safety and regulation that predictability and routine can offer especially autistic nervous systems. It will also explore the vitality of agency as an underlying foundation for providing trauma-informed care and implications for how to approach commonly presenting experiences around relationships with food.
Learning Objectives:
Identify at least three critiques of traditional treatment approaches to obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Describe at least two clinical applications of attachment theory and the role of the nervous system in working with clients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Demonstrate knowledge of at least two trauma-informed adaptations when working with autistic clients with OCD.
Describe at least two neurodiversity affirming considerations for working with neurodivergent clients exploring their relationships with food.
Reece (they/them) is a therapist based in Nashville, TN. They are certified in Somatic Attachment therapy through the Embody Lab. Reece is passionate about OCD, and incorporates learnings from both their lived and clinical experiences. Reece values a de-pathologizing, neurodiversity affirming, nervous system and trauma-informed approach to therapy. Self-compassion and self-trust are central values in their work. Reece also really enjoys working with queer and trans humans, complex trauma (including developmental and religious trauma), those exploring autism and DHD, and children of immigrants. They are licensed in Washington State and Utah, as well.
Price: $199 USD
Speaker: Kris Scover, RDN, LD (they/them)
Date and Time: July 16th 2025, 12:00-1:30 pm ET
Traditional OCD and eating disorder treatment often asks clients to ignore their instincts, override their fears, and reject the parts of themselves that don’t comply with a provider’s idea of “healing.” But what if those parts are trying to help? What if we stopped demanding compliance and started listening instead?
This presentation explores what it means to approach OCD and eating disorder treatment through the lens of curiosity, autonomy, and Internal Family Systems (IFS)—without minimizing the very real pain and disruption OCD can cause. Through case studies, their own lived experience, and interactive discussion, Kris will unpack the blurry boundaries of DSM diagnoses, the harm of coercive treatment standards, and the importance of engaging with “unrecovered” parts—especially when they challenge our own values.
Participants will leave with perspective-shifting insights that support values-based experimentation, restore client agency, and honor the complexity of each person’s internal world—offering a more compassionate and curious approach to care.
Let’s stop telling OCD to shut up—and start asking what it’s trying to say.
Learning objectives:
Articulate the importance of centering curiosity and experimentation in OCD and eating disorder treatment
Conceptualize OCD through the lens of IFS parts and help clients engage with “uncovered” parts instead of ignoring or rejecting them
Check provider biases regarding the external experience of OCD as defined by the DSM vs the internal experience of the client
Help clients access values-based treatment, even when those values differ from the clinician’s
Kris (they/them) is a registered dietitian and public speaker who specializes in working with neurodivergent, gender-expansive, and queer clients who are seeking an agentic approach to eating disorder care. Kris is queer, trans, non-binary, and multiply neurodivergent—including living with OCD— and their work is shaped by these identities and their desire to improve access to inclusive eating disorder care. They own their own private practice, NourishedED, where they practice from an anti-diet, fat-positive, trauma-informed perspective.
Therapists and clinicians deserve to feel equipped and confident in their ability to support clients navigating the complex intersections of OCD, eating, and safety.
This series is designed to offer not only deeper insight, but also practical tools, clinical frameworks, and compassionate strategies that can be integrated into everyday practice.
Whether you're looking to refine your understanding or expand your approach, this series provides the knowledge and support needed to show up for your clients with clarity, curiosity, and care.
Price: $199 USD
While there are benefits to attending the live sessions, we recognize that this may not be possible for everyone and for every presentation. Recordings will be available on the portal within 24 hours, and you will have access for 120 days after the series is delivered.
You will have access for 120 days after the series is delivered.