This year’s International Congress is already set to become the most attended RCPsych conference outside London. It is also going to set another record, albeit on a much smaller scale. RCPsychIC 2018 will host the most OCD related talks ever in its history. In total there are going to be nine talks about OCD, with two full symposiums dedicated to the subject area. You will get to hear not just from psychiatrists but also from neurosurgeons, cognitive neuroscientists and academic psychologists and nurses in the field.

As OCD usually does not get its fair share in clinical and academic worlds, it really feels good to see it thrive at a major international conference. By actively encouraging participation of non-psychiatrists, RCPsychICs (aka organising committee) have ensured that this year’s conference is also going to be the most diverse platform for ideas and education in its history. As one of the speakers, I have to declare a conflict of interest as this post can be seen as a a promotional plug for the conference. But I guess I would be fine as the conference is already fully sold out for the first four days meaning any more promotion won’t make a difference in attendance.  One thing I do wish we could have done is to organise a tenth talk, not just to make it a nice round figure. Compiling the list of OCD talks at this conference (below) also made me realise the lack of a talk from an OCD sufferer. As we have seen at last years congress, patient voices are several orders of magnitude more powerful than anything else and can shift attitudes faster than anything else. Hindsight tells me that this is a grave oversight on our part, something I definitely wish to correct for the next congress.

You can see the full RCPsychIC 2018 program here. For those who do not want to trawl through the whole program to find OCD related stuff I have summarised it in a concise list below:

• The Neurocomputational Role of Corticostriatal Networks in OCD by Tobias Hauser (Seminar S6; 24th June 2018)
• Thalamo–cortico–striatal mechanisms of deep brain stimulation for OCD by Annemieke Apergis–Schoute (Seminar S6; 24th June 2018)
• Evolution of Our Understanding of the Neural Circuitry Dysfunction in OCD by Himanshu Tyagi (Seminar S6; 24th June 2018)
• Neurosurgery for Psychiatric Disorders including OCD by Ludvic Zrinzo (Seminar S10; 24th June 2018)
• Lesion Surgery & Deep Brain Stimulation for OCD by Keith Matthews (Seminar S10; 24th June 2018)
• New psychopharmacology models for OCD by Naomi Fineberg (Seminar S24; 26th June 2018)
• New behavioural and cognitive models for OCD by Lynne Drummond (Seminar S24; 26th June 2018)
• Invasive and non–invasive brain stimulation for OCD by Eileen Joyce (Seminar S24; 26th June 2018)
• Twelve Month Treatment Outcomes for Intensive Psychological Therapy and Anterior Cingulotomy for Severe OCD by Karen Walker (Rapid Fire Presentation; 26th June 2018)

Enjoy #RCPsychIC 2018! See you at ICC Birmingham.

Also published on Medium.