Professor Caleb Lack

11/27/2025

Who wants to learn from one of the best (or at least baldest) clinical psychologists you know? Here's a list of training and workshops I will be doing across the first half of 2026, get your place reserved now!

Specialization Program in OCD / Dec-June: This 7 month training from my friends in ALTOC covers all the ins and outs of working with OCD. Some trainings in English but most in Spanish. I will talk on inhibitory learning, flooding vs. gradual exposures, and more.

DSM-5-TR Update / January 27: A 3 hour PESI training on what all was changed and revised in the latest DSM, including the new diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder, improvements to the Cultural Formulation Interview, and more.

Pediatric Virtual Behavior Therapy Training Institute / Feb. 20-24: The gold standard training in how to treat youth with OCD from the IOCDF.

Trauma & Stressor Related Disorders in the DSM-5-TR / March 13: A 3 hour PESI training covering PTSD, Adjustment Disorder, RAD, DSED, and more.

Diploma course in Psychotraumatology from AyG Capacitación y Psicoterapia: This 135 hour course will take place from March to August, with some trainings in English but most in Spanish. I will do a 10 hour training on Written Exposure Treatment (WET) for PTSD, and other presenters include Drs. Resick (Cognitive Processing Therapy), Bohus (DBT for PTSD), Rauch (Prolonged Exposure), and many more.

EITOC 2026 / April 17-19: This three day, in person course in Lima, Peru is to help introduce new clinicians to OCD and how to treat it across the lifespan. Myself, Dr. Eric Storch, and our colleagues from Chile, Peru, and Mexico will be conducting this training, which will primarily be in Spanish.

Treating Tornado-based Trauma / May 7-8: As part of the Oklahoma Counseling Institute's Summer Super Summit, I am presenting on working with youth and adults who have experienced natural disasters and are struggling in the aftermath.

Treating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder using CBT-ERP / May: A two day, 13 hour training covering all you need to know to start doing ERP to treat OCD, from assessment to hierarchy building to conducting effective exposures.

11/25/2025

Eli Lebowitz and his colleagues with a new study showing that group administration of the SPACE protocol (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Child Experiences) can be effective for children with anxiety disorders:

"Given the many barriers to accessing such evidence-based treatments, we evaluated for the first time the application of group-based SPACE, delivered to parents via telemedicine within a public health outpatient setting. ... Post treatment, significant reductions were evident in child self-reported separation anxiety symptoms (p =0.008), mother-reported child anxiety symptoms (p=0.002), maternal accommodation (p=0.006), anxiety (p=0.004) and depressive symptoms (p=0.011). Treatment proved feasible, with completion rates of 77.3%, and participants reported high levels of satisfaction with the telemedicine format."

Read more - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1570497/full

11/23/2025

The fact that the “professional” programs on the new list include both chiropractic and theology tells you all you need to know about the validity of it. Yet another very poor decision that will make our country less healthy and worse off from the Trump administration.

Discover the new results and implications of Dept of Ed consensus regarding professional degree programs and public health education.

11/22/2025

Looking for CEUs? PESI is having a 50% off sale right now on both my prior trainings (treating Tourette’s and tics, ethical decision making) and my upcoming January training on the DSM-5-TR!

11/21/2025

Exposure with response prevention (ERP) is one of our most well studied, effective, and safe treatments for various kinds of anxiety and fear-based disorders (OCD, PTSD, etc.). Yet it is highly underutilized by clinicians due to misunderstandings and negative perception, and in this study by Eric Lee he found similar problems with the general public:

"Respondents rated exposure effectiveness below many alternate interventions, some of which have been shown to exacerbate obsessive-compulsive symptoms. In general, participants viewed the examples of exposure therapy as traumatizing, dangerous, unethical, and ineffective at treating obsessive-compulsive disorder. These views were consistent for exposures related to contamination, responsibility for harm, and unacceptable thoughts, but not for “not just right” experiences. These results highlight the importance of efforts to inform the public of evidence- based treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder."

Read more here - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384704113_Public_Perceptions_of_Exposure_and_Response_Prevention_for_Obsessive-Compulsive_Disorder

11/20/2025

It’s a season of change here on the farm, and that can be a good thing…even if it’s hard.

11/19/2025

Fascinating new genomic study examining prevalence of genes related to ADHD in modern humans, our ancient ancestors, and even Neanderthals!

“Our analyses indicate that ADHD-associated alleles are enriched in loss of function intolerant genes, supporting the role of selective pressures in this early-onset phenotype. Furthermore, we observed that the frequency of variants associated with ADHD has steadily decreased since Paleolithic times, particularly in Paleolithic European populations compared to samples from the Neolithic Fertile Crescent. … All analyses performed support the presence of long-standing selective pressures acting against ADHD-associated alleles until recent times. Overall, our results are compatible with the mismatch theory for ADHD but suggest a much older time frame for the evolution of ADHD-associated alleles compared to previous hypotheses.”

11/19/2025

I had a great time presenting this weekend at the Global OCD Conference (hosted by OCD Southern California. Along with my colleagues Jon Hershfield, Jose Martinez, and Danielle McDowell, I talked about how anger and rage can often present in OCD (alongside more commonly talked about emotions like fear and anxiety). We had great questions and participation from the audience, and the conference had over 1300 attendees total!

Huge congrats to OCDSoCal for putting this on!

They are also offering registration that allows people to sign up to get access to the recordings. Go to https://ocdconference.eventbrite.com, and register to gain access!

11/17/2025

Really interesting new paper from Dr. Stephen Whiteside and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic, finding that parent-coached exposure therapy (PCET) led to better outcomes than traditional CBT for children with a variety of anxiety disorders. This was likely due to the heavy emphasis on ERP compared to other aspects of treatment:

“PCET sessions contained significantly greater session time spent on exposure and significantly less time spent on anxiety management strategies (e.g. cognitive restructuring and relaxation) compared to CBT (ps < 0.05).”

11/17/2025

Sometimes you need to remember to just take a few minutes and breathe. I hope you’re all as relaxed as a Kunekune pig with a bellyful of acorns as we head into the holiday season.

11/15/2025

New review out on what factors cause delays in getting services in those who have OCD.

“Highlights
• Both individual and systemic barriers lead to delays in OCD care, and these vary across identity factors like age, race, and gender.
• Mistrust in providers, doubts of effectiveness of treatment, and lack of knowledge about OCD led to delays.
• Stigma, denial, and fear create substantial barriers to timely help seeking in OCD.
• Religious alternatives to clinical care delay evidence-based OCD treatment.
• Logistical barriers to care vary by country but consistently impact treatment access.”

11/15/2025

Looking to wind down after a long week? How about a relaxing bedtime story by Dr. Lack, this time with some lesser known Grimm's fairytales...

https://youtu.be/PnC3mqLeSXM?si=ZzMOZkEUbBI9UqbQ

(Also available on Spotify, Apple, and others)