by Joye C. Anestis
As I've mentioned before, I am scared to watch any mental health reality show on TV. I fear that they will provide extreme misinformation, and I don't want to waste precious TV time on something that will just make me angry (unless, of course, they intend to make me angry). So I've never watched Hoarders or Intervention or Celebrity Rehab or anything similar (my rule also applies to fictional shows as well...no In Treatment or United States of Tara). But recently, I caught an episode of The OCD Project on VH1 after I read about it in The Behavior Therapist (you can watch full episodes if you click on The OCD Project above). Lo and behold, ESTs were being used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)...specifically, Dr. Dave Tolin (a well-known OCD researcher) was using exposure and ritual prevention! On TV! As you can imagine, Mike and I got really, nerdishly excited...and very nearly woke the baby with our elation (which would have been a disaster!)! Perhaps the success of that show will motivate VH1 or someone else to feature ESTs on their programs.
Do you guys know of any other EST shows that we should check out?
Joye Anestis is a doctoral candidate at Florida State University.
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