NEAL CONAN, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
Checking, double-checking and second-guessing - all of us do it. But millions of us take our anxieties to extremes - obsessing about an unlocked door, dirty hands, a properly made bed, and then rechecking again and again.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is when the walls of reason and function crumble, when we listen to intrusive thoughts that compel us to repeat seemingly mundane actions that we're unable to stop. On one end of the continuum, OCD can seem quirky, eccentric or annoying. At the other, it can be crippling.
Today, our main focus is the diagnosis, treatment and living with OCD. Later in the hour, word up, the creator and the star of PBS' "WordGirl" joins us. But first, OCD. If you're living with it, what's it like for you? Do other people understand? Our number is 800-989-8255. That's 800-989-TALK. E-mail is talk@npr.org and you could join the conversation on our blog at npr.org/blogofthenation.
KCBS anchorman Jeff Bell chronicles his experiences with OCD in a memoir titled "Rewind, Replay, Repeat." He joins us from KCBS Radio in San Francisco.
Nice to have you on TALK OF THE NATION today.
Mr. JEFF BELL (Anchorman, KCBS Radio; Author, "Rewind, Replay, Repeat"): Thanks so much for having me, Neal.
CONAN: And, Jeff, you used to be a reporter there and I wonder how did your OCD affect you and your ability to do your job?
Mr. BELL: Oh, man, it's a long, long list. One of the biggest challenges for me as an OCD checker with harm obsessions - meaning, I'm concerned about harming other people through my negligence, unknowingly - is driving. A classic OCD-harming, obsession compulsion cycle - for somebody with these harming obsessions - would be driving along and you hit a pothole with your car. We've all done it. It rattles the car. We think to ourselves, I hit a pothole. You drive on a little bit farther and you start thinking to yourself, well, are you sure that was a pothole you hit and not somebody you ran over in the street?
Well, as an OCD checker, my natural compulsion is to double the car back and verify for myself that there is, in fact, a pothole in the road. You would think that that might solve the problem. I would drive off and then wonder to myself if perhaps the body bounced to the side of the road and have to go back again and again and again - endless loops. So that's a very classic OCD pattern for somebody with this particular pattern.
CONAN: Mm-hmm.
Mr. BELL: As and…
CONAN: I was just going to say, there was another moment in your book where you describe your daughter's had given you a friendship bracelet and you were standing on the edge of a pool, terrified that if you jump into the pool, the colors would run and you would hurt other - the dyes would hurt other people in the pool. And you stood there frozen. Can you describe what's going through your mind at a moment like that?
Mr. BELL: Yeah. In that particular case, Neal, I was concerned that somehow, the dye from this friendship bracelet that my daughter had made me would get in the pool and somehow contaminate the pool and harm other people. Again, that root obsession for me - always about harming other people.
So what if that dye contaminates the pool, other people get in that pool and are harmed through my negligence? And uninterestingly, those of us who battled this disorder are acutely and painfully aware of just how ridiculous a notion like that might be.
You would ask about how this impacted my work life, for example. With that driving issue - as you can imagine in someone in the business that you are in, as a field reporter, I was paid to get to the scene of a crime or a breaking news story. And in an efficient manner, I'll report back to the station and heads to our listeners what's going on. But in our KCBS news van, I spent so much time driving the car in circles, checking those potholes over and over again.
That ultimately, out of necessity, I got into this pattern of taking the news car out of our KCBS garage here in San Francisco, parking it around the corner and ultimately taking a taxicab out to breaking news stories because it was the only way I could get there in an efficient manner.
CONAN: And what happens if the taxicab hits a pothole?
Mr. BELL: Well, that's okay because I'm not necessarily responsible for that. I mean, I'd like to tell you it's all about this great concern I have for humanity. But one of the things that therapy with all of these has helped me learned over the years is that, no, really I'm protecting myself from the obsessive thoughts because they're so uncomfortable.
CONAN: Hmm. Is there a shame connected with OCD?
Mr. BELL: Lots of shame. I spent so many years covering up who I was with this OCD. I spent thousands of dollars out of my own pocket to avoid leaving a paper trail in the health care system. I would literally park my car blocks away from a therapist's office and sneak through alleys to get to and from the office because I was so embarrassed by what I was doing with these obsessions and compulsions, embarrassed even by the whole notion of being in therapy. I mean, that's a whole other issue in terms of the stigma surrounding mental illness.
If you had told me all those years back that I would be sharing my story in this book and talking with you and people across the country about this, I would have never believed you. There were probably a half-dozen people in my entire world who had any clue what was going on.
CONAN: Hmm. And those very few people, did they keep your secret?
Mr. BELL: They did. They did, in fact. And primarily because they were family members…
CONAN: So you had stuff on them?
Mr. BELL: I had stuff on them, absolutely. You know, it's interesting, prior to about five months ago - I guess it is now - that when the book came out, nobody that I worked with - I mean, some of them for decades, had any clue about what was going on. I was a very, very good liar, very good at covering my tracks.
So you know, when I couldn't drive somebody to the company party, there was always an excuse. When I had to disappear from the studio before a guest came in, to go scrub my hands, there was always an excuse. I got very good. I was very resourceful.
CONAN: Hmm. Let's get some callers into this conversation. 800-989-8255. E-mail is talk@npr.org.
Our guest, with a great pipes, is Jeff Bell, who's the afternoon co-anchor at KCBS and author of "Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder."
And why don't we start with Jay(ph). Jay is with us from Dayton, Ohio.
JAY (Caller): Good afternoon, Neal. Thank you so much for your show. I'm truly enjoying you.
CONAN: Well, thank you.
JAY: Absolutely. You know, everything that I've experienced in my life with OCD has just been echoed by your guest.
CONAN: And what is your particular compulsion? Or is there one particular one?
JAY: Well, there's a few. The one that's sort of manifest itself, for me, is hand washing.
CONAN: Mm-hmm.
JAY: I grew up with a mother who was in the dental field and so she was a compulsive hand washer as well. And so I find myself washing my hands, many, many times a day. And for many years, I thought, well, you know, that's just cleanliness.
But it wasn't until college that I met somebody who also shared the great secret that we actually spoke about it and it was almost like a moment of - I'd really truly found a friend or somebody who would understand that I didn't - I don't - he had the compulsion to turn around, you know, bump checking, you know, to make sure. And so many times I would - it was so frustrating for me to see him go through that because I knew exactly what it felt like.
And in many times, I would support him and go, like, let's go back and take a look, so that you can prove that no, you didn't injure someone.
CONAN: And, Jeff Bell, I have to say a part of your therapy that that seems to have helped a lot is your association with somebody else with OCD.
Mr. BELL: Absolutely. As I described in the book, I befriended a wonderful woman in her 70s, who had very different patterns from my own. But we were able to talk through a lot what was going on and that's helpful to get that layer of perspective.
Interestingly, what Jay is talking about in terms of his own patterns and those of his friend who had the bump checking, all obsessive-compulsives have what I call a root obsession and a series of compulsions that have developed around.
Now these could be very, very different on the surface. There are washers. There are checkers. There are repeaters and horders and orderers. And these things seemed very different in their manifestations, and they are at that layer. But when you break it down, it's all about the same cycle.
It's always about some horrific what-if thought. What if I get germs on someone? What if I give someone germs? What if something happens through my negligence? And the compulsions are simply these rituals, these nonsensical, repetitive actions that we as OCs developed, trying to dislodge these thoughts that are biochemically stuck in our brains.
It's the classic dog-chasing-its-own-tail. It doesn't work but because they feel good for the moment, we reinforce that cycle over and over again.
CONAN: Jay, good luck with your problems.
JAY: Absolutely. And thanks for the show, and truly, you're the greatest. Thank you.
CONAN: Welcome. Thanks very much. Also with us is Dr. Wayne Goodman, director of the Division of Adult Translational Research and Treatment Development at the National Institute of Mental Health, and he's been kind enough to join us here in Studio 3A today. Thanks very much, Dr. Goodman.
Dr. WAYNE GOODMAN (Director, National Institute of Mental Health, Division of Adult Translational Research and Treatment Development): Thank you very much.
CONAN: And I was just wondering what you made of Jeff Bell's analysis of the condition there?
Dr. GOODMAN: I couldn't do a better job. It's a classic description of a case of OCD. I generally do not like to make a diagnosis over the phone, but I would have to agree based upon what I heard that he's definitely has OCD and he has tremendous insight into it.
CONAN: Mm-hmm. Living with it, your patients have to cope with it, too. This is not so easy. The kinds of problems Jeff Bell has had in his life, well, they're not uncommon.
Dr. GOODMAN: They're not uncommon. Often, we see OCD represented in somewhat frivolous fashion and it's something that often we laugh at. But in many cases, it is crippling. One of the features, which Jeff described is that you try everything you can to camouflage your behaviors, keep it from others, and that itself occupies a great deal of time.
CONAN: It can be exhausting, yeah.
Dr. GOODMAN: So it's a cost in time, it interferes with functioning. It can be a very devastating condition.
CONAN: Jeff Bell, I wanted to ask you. Probably, the person with OCD that most of us know or think we know is the fictional detective Adrian Monk, who lives in your town of San Francisco - think fictionally. Do you watch the show?
Mr. BELL: I do watch the show and I have to tell you, Neal, I probably get that question more than any, when I'm out and about talking about the book these days. And I think a lot of folks were surprised to hear that I actually enjoy the show. I mean, there are holes. I think that the consistency could be a little bit better in terms of how they handle some of his challenges. Sometimes, he can face something. Sometimes, he can't.
But the whole notion of being able to laugh together at the absurdity of all this is okay by me. In fact, recovering my lost sense of humor has been a big part of my own recovery because it allows us to step back and see what's going on, to understand that this is a biochemical, biological disorder, and that these thoughts aren't real despite the incredible realness of the feelings surrounding them, which drive the compulsions.
But I think it's fine for us to be able to, you know, look at something like Monk as a starting point for discussion. I wish the producers spent a little more time focusing on Monk's agony in addition to the, you know, the absurdity of it all because you get glimpses of that.
One of the hallmarks of OCD is that those of us who suffer from this get no pleasure out of it. You know, unlike somebody who might, you know, get great pleasure from doing various, quote, unquote, "compulsions," if you have OCD, you're not enjoying getting stuck at the sink, scrubbing your hands.
CONAN: All right. We're going to take a break. Jeff Bell, stay with us, also, Dr. Wayne Goodman. If you like to join the conversation, again, our phone number is 800-989-8255, 800-989-TALK. E-mail us talk@npr.org.
I'm Neal Conan. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
A little later, we'll talk with the newest superhero, a fifth grader with a vivid vocabulary. It's WordGirl. We'll get to that in a bit.
Right now, though, we are talking about obsessive-compulsive disorder and what it's like to live with OCD. If you're living it, what is life like for you? Do other people understand? 800-989-8255, e-mail: talk@npr.org.
Our guests are, Jeff Bell, he is a co-anchor at KCBS radio and author of "Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder"; also with us is Dr. Wayne Goodman, director of the Division of Adult Translational Research and Treatment Development at the National Institute of Mental Health.
And let's see if can get another caller on the line. And this is Laura(ph), Laura's with us from Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.
LAURA (Caller): Hi. How are you today?
CONAN: Well, thank you.
LAURA: My husband suffers from OCD and isn't happy for it. I, first of all, want to thank you for referring to it as a mental illness. That is what it is. Very difficult for anyone to live with themselves or the people around them; it's very difficult for us as family members or friends.
I wonder if there are other options besides therapy. He has a problem getting from point A to point B. Instead of taking 10 minutes, he can take three hours and 47 minutes. Picking weeds is a great compulsion. Internet buying was a great compulsion - he works very hard on it. But I wonder if there are other options for him and if there are other resources out there for me as a family member who lives with it.
CONAN: Dr. Goodman?
Dr. GOODMAN: Well, so far, you haven't described anything that I would clearly say tells me he has OCD. There's some controversy about whether a compulsive buying or even compulsive gambling is OCD. I tend to think it isn't. What other symptoms does he have that makes you think he has OCD?
LAURA: Picking weeds. He can be on his way to the lawnmower and start picking weeds, and this is a constant that even the neighbors notice. And it'll take him hours to get to the lawnmower because he got busy bending over and picking weeds that hardly exist.
CONAN: Anything else in the house?
LAURA: Many projects started and unfinished over the course of the last eight years. He'll leave one little corner of a floor undone and move on to the next project.
Mr. BELL: I'm not absolutely certain that's OCD. As I indicated earlier, I'm a little loath to make a diagnosis over the phone, one way or the other. But in general, in terms of treatment, there are various options. Principally, medications or form of therapy called behavior therapy. Has he tried either?
LAURA: He has a psychologist that he sees very regularly and it's just a one-on-one. I don't know if other people involved in it, group-tried(ph) things with being a better help for him.
CONAN: Well, we wish you the very best, Laura. It's a difficult problem.
LAURA: Thank you.
CONAN: All right. I wonder, Jeff Bell, illustratively, what worked for you?
Mr. BELL: Well, I tell you, it's been a combination of a lot of things. But, as I think Dr. Goodman would agree, the real science these days in terms of OCD treatment is something called exposure response prevention, and it's pretty much it what it sounds like. It's exposing an obsessive-compulsive to his or her worst fears, worst obsessions, and then learning to desensitize around those fears in terms of not acting onto compulsions, to sit with the fear.
It's a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy. I have found, in my own circuitous path through the mental health field, if you will, that it was really the only thing that work clinically for me. I was misdiagnosed twice. I'm not a big fan of traditional talk therapy for dealing with OCD. I know that there are some who, you know, find that there is a place for this in terms of talking about root issues.
But when it comes right down to it, we're talking about a biological, biochemical disorder, and really, it is about retraining the brain. It's hard work - the ERP, exposure response prevention - really, really hard work. And much of my own process in terms of the recovery was learning to reframe the whole thing. I call it my greater-good framework, if you will, which was learning to reframe the need for confronting these particular fears and starting to retrain my brain because of the level of discomfort.
CONAN: And are you on any medication?
Mr. BELL: I am. I take a low dosage of Zoloft. I have found that over the years, that the medication - you cannot turn down the intensity or the volume of the thoughts if you will. The caveat I always put out there - and again, I'm not a medical expert. I'm just a guy who's been through this.
But from where I sit, I think that medication alone can be problematic because really, what the ERP and the broader cognitive-behavioral therapy that I went through offered me was a set of life skills, coping skills, you know, the idea that I could learn to live with the obsessions and reduce the compulsions. And so I'm afraid that medication alone would prevent you from getting those skills that ultimately, I think, any obsessive-compulsive needs to learn.
CONAN: And finally, Jeff Bell, before we let you go, you've talked about the agony and the shame and the difficulties that this has caused in your life, and all of us can see big, big, big downsides. Was there any upside at all?
Mr. BELL: Well, you know, it's interesting, and that's another great question in that OCD certainly can have its "benefits," if you will -I put benefits in quotes here - in that it certainly allows you to hyperfocus on things, you know, and people will say, well, isn't good that you're a perfectionist? In my line of work, I am paid, you know, to do stories as part of my job. So I put on, you know, a 60-second story. I like to joke that my stories are the best fact-checked stories at America.
I mean, I have come through that script over and over again. On the surface, that would seem good. I mean, it would seem like I am serving my employer very well and serving my journalistic whatevers by checking the story. But here's the thing, Neal. If I get so sidetracked in checking that story - and I've been there many times. If I get so sidetracked on it, I can't get the story on the air, so it's no good to anybody.
So, that again gets back to what I have been playing with over the years, and I write about, is this whole greater good notion where you have to accept that, yeah, you might get something wrong in that story. But in the greater good of it all, you have to accept that discomfort and save yourself, I'm at least going to get the story on the air.
CONAN: Jeff Bell, thanks very much for your time today. We appreciate it.
Mr. BELL: Thanks for having me, Neal. It's was a pleasure.
CONAN: Jeff Bell, author of "Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder," and he joined us today from KCBS Radio, where he's the afternoon anchor in San Francisco. Still with us, of course, is Dr. Wayne Goodman. And let's see if we can get some more callers on the line. And why don't we go to Francesca(ph), Francesca with us from San Jose in California.
FRANCESCA (Caller): Hi. I'm actually calling about my daughter who's five and a half. I don't know if this diagnosis actually applies to children. She's had a ticking issue for about a year and it's manifested in different ways. She also occasionally has told me that she has thoughts that or thoughts that bother her that she can't get out of her head.
CONAN: Mm-hmm. And when you say ticking behavior, what does that mean?
FRANCESCA: Ticking, where she wants to - she had started with kind of grunting. I would think that the doctor might be familiar with that.
CONAN: That - because isn't this sometimes associated with Tourette's syndrome?
Dr. GOODMAN: Yeah. Yes, it is. Absolutely.
FRANCESCA: I think - perhaps, which - I think I read was one type of OCD. So my concern is do we - I also read that its - this can occur in 10 to 20 percent of pre-school age kids, that it's fairly common and that it can work itself out over time.
Dr. GOODMAN: Yeah, that's the good news…
FRANCESCA: But I'm wondering is should - do we treat it? Do I…
Dr. GOODMAN: Right. It's an excellent question. Could you - would you mind describing if she has any other ticks, like eye blinking?
FRANCESCA: Yes. Eye blinking, she kind of stretches her eyes, and then just in July, she's started this next stretching, where she wants to kind of - she does this funny thing with her neck and her head. And I've often…
Dr. GOODMAN: Does she have to touch any…
FRANCESCA: …I thought not to draw attention to it and try to - I don't to humiliate her or…
Dr. GOODMAN: Absolutely.
FRANCESCA: …make her embarrassed or more nervous because I feel like it's a nervous issue. So - but I've asked her, do you want to stop doing that? You know, is it bothering you? And she said, well, it feels good.
Dr. GOODMAN: Right. To answer your question, I think that there's enough there that I would recommend an evaluation.
FRANCESCA: Mm-hmm.
Dr. GOODMAN: Too soon - and certainly, I'm in no position to say whether she requires any treatment. But I would certainly go ahead with the evaluation. I certainly would wonder about a tick disorder. And as Neal mentioned, there's often a connection between tick disorders, in this case, multiple ticks, and OCD, and we tend to see that combination in childhood.
And maybe that will still be a passing stage. She may get over it on her own. That's certainly the news in general about ticks or even Tourette's. But I would have somebody take a look at it and see and just watch for any progression, because some sort of intervention maybe called for, may not be medications, may be some sort of behavioral…
FRANCESCA: But that's what I'm reluctant to do at this - it's, young…
Dr. GOODMAN: Right. So, no - I mean, most folks today treating OCD in kids will not start with medication
FRANCESCA: Okay. That's good to hear.
CONAN: Well, Francesca, good luck.
FRANCESCA: Thank you.
CONAN: Bye-bye.
And we mentioned Tourette's, which is that compulsion to blurt out, sometimes, very shocking things in conversation. OCD is also connected with any - a number of other kinds of disorders, eating disorders and depression, is it not?
Dr. GOODMAN: The - I'd agree with the depression that many patients, at first, seek treatment for OCD do so because they become depressed. And I don't see that as much different from anybody who suffered from a chronic medical condition who may eventually become depressed.
Eating disorders, that's a much more complex story. And although the word compulsive eating or compulsive gambling, compulsive sexual activity, often conjures up a notion of OCD, I don't see them as the same. One of the reasons being, as your - as Jeff mentioned earlier in the program, that the compulsions of OCD are not pleasurable at any point in their history.
CONAN: Hmm. Let's get Andrew(ph) on the line, Andrew with us from Spokane in Washington.
ANDREW (Caller): Hello.
CONAN: Andrew, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.
ANDREW: Hi. Hi, there. Thanks for taking my call.
CONAN: Sure.
ANDREW: This is a little bit out of the ordinary for me because I'm not really the kind of phone-calling person. However, I have been a longtime sufferer of both bipolar and OCD. And, you know, there was a young lady on the phone earlier who seemed to be distressed that her husband was, you know, picking weeds for just, you know, outrageous amounts of time and all those types of things.
In the years of marriage - I've been married for 18 years now - my wife and my family and I have determined that, yes, my compulsions are certainly there, but then if they're directed to the lawn care, the washing of the car, the taking care of the dishes and, you know, family chores, things, you know, that are good and helpful, that has been an outlet for me, and it can be joked about. You know, I mean, you have to (unintelligible) all the time - you haven't washed the car in two days or something. But it's been helpful in my relationship, was my answer to her question.
CONAN: Mm-hmm. I wonder, Dr. Goodman, is that - would you recommend something like that?
Dr. GOODMAN: I'd first want to know what kind of compulsions you're referring to - the nonfunctional, the non-adaptive ones, the ones that take the time and, cause the stress.
ANDREW: Well, the ones that she considered to cause stress were the - where she said her husband…
Dr. GOODMAN: No, I'm talking about you.
ANDREW: For me, my compulsions were excessive cleanliness - taking showers four, five times a day, washing my hands, absolutely needing to stay clean. Those types of things were kind of redirected in the keeping of the yard and taking care of the household functions, and vacuuming. You know, those types of things were, over time - I mean, yeah, they were certainly compulsion to do those things, yeah, but then by directing it and being directed by my family and helping me to deal with those compulsions, it became a positive, you know, compulsion. Do you understand that?
Dr. GOODMAN: I do understand. And it's fortunate you were able to do it. Most patients - most sufferers with OCD can make that transition, at least initially, without some sort of treatment intervention that reduces the symptoms first.
CONAN: Well, Andrew - but thanks very much for the call, and good luck with the dishes.
ANDREW: Yes. Thank you.
CONAN: All right. We're talking with Dr. Wayne Goodman of the National Institute of Mental Health about OCD - what it is, what it isn't, and about living with it.
You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
And Dr. Goodman, as I think we've seen illustrated in a couple of calls, some people think they have OCD and may not.
Dr. GOODMAN: I believe you're right. And sometimes, even trained mental health professionals may make a mistake in the diagnosis, either by missing it, not asking the right questions, or perhaps getting confused with some of the terminology. So OCD is something that seems very simple. By definition, all you need to have are obsessions and compulsions, but you need a lot of experience in seeing patients with OCD to be able to know when you have a true case.
CONAN: Mm-hmm. Let's talk with Jill(ph). Jill with - excuse me - Bill. Bill is with us from Akron, Ohio.
BILL (Caller): Hi, Neal. Thank you for taking my call.
CONAN: Sure.
BILL: I have kind of a two-part question. First part is OCD is there any kind of fear - inherit this or any hereditary factor, and…
CONAN: Well, why don't we take it one at the time, Bill? Is this genetic?
Dr. GOODMAN: There is mounting evidence that some forms of OCD are genetic, particularly like the possible case that was described earlier where the onset is in childhood, particularly if there are also ticks involved, and you find another family member, a parent, that had OCD. So there are some clues out there and we have some candidate genes that we're looking at. And if you look at twin studies, too, you see that identical twins are much more likely to develop OCD than just fraternal twins. So there are lots of evidence pointing in that direction, but not all cases are clearly have a genetic basis.
CONAN: And, Bill, your other question?
BILL: The other question is, let's say, excessive arranging or preparing for something - a symptom. For example, you can't just perform a task, let's say, get dinner ready or get breakfast ready, you have to some time prior - prepare, get things kind of in a stack, and then when the time comes in, you actually perform it. Almost all with the household-chore-type activities involved preparing for the activity and then sometime later you do the activity. And also…
CONAN: But, why don't we…
Dr. GOODMAN: By itself, that wouldn't concern me unless it added up to several extra hours a day. If it affect - it has to be at least an hour wasted. And if that preparation is actually helping performance, I would be reluctant to call it a disorder.
CONAN: There are obsessives, though, who are compelled to correct the angle of every picture they see or rearrange the books in (unintelligible).
Dr. GOODMAN: Oh, yeah, to the point that it's absurd.
CONAN: Yeah. Yeah. Bill…
BILL: The other one I was going to toss out there is, for example, when the children are playing with their toys and when the children leave the room, then the toys get arranged in kind of an optimal way for the children to come back and start playing with them again.
Dr. GOODMAN: Is that - you mean, you're arranging them and not the children?
BILL: No, the children leave the room and then…
CONAN: Then you arrange the toys.
Dr. GOODMAN: Yeah. That urge to…
BILL: Well, I don't…
Dr. GOODMAN: That urge to order and arrange certainly can be a symptom of OCD.
CONAN: Mm-hmm. All right. Bill, thanks very much.
BILL: Thank you.
CONAN: I appreciate it.
And Dr. Goodman, thank you for your time today, for being with us here in the studio.
Wayne Goodman is director of the Division of Adult Translational Research and Treatment Development at the National Institute of Mental Health. And he was here with us, as I mentioned, in Studio 3A.
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