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Sneaky Rituals in the Modern World: How OCD Adapted to the Digital Age
OCD didn’t go away-it updated its software. In this presentation Kristina Orlova, LMFT, explores how compulsions and safety behaviors have evolved alongside our digital lives, showing up in places we least expect: our search bars, our group chats, our wearables, and our AI chatbots.
Drawing on clinical experience and lived experience with OCD, this talk helps participants identify the subtle, modern rituals that often fly under the radar-from reassurance-seeking through Reddit threads and AI chatbots, to doom scrolling mental health content, to swapping one compulsion for another and calling it recovery. Attendees will leave with practical tools to apply ERP principles to their digital habits, and one simple question they can use as their own ritual detector going forward.
Since founding her private practice in 2016, Kristina has focused exclusively on OCD and anxiety, working with individuals navigating all forms of the disorder-including relationship OCD, morality OCD, and “just right” OCD-using evidence-based approaches including Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Inference-Based CBT (I-CBT). Her practice KOR Results Family Therapy Inc., is a telehealth-based practice offering individual therapy, coaching, and one-, two-, and three-week Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOPs) designed to meet clients wherever they are in their journey. She has presented at both the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA).
Kristina is also the host of The OCD Whisperer Podcast- a top-ranked mental health podcast built on honest conversations about OCD, anxiety, and the fears that quietly run people’s lives. Born in Ukraine and raised in the United States, she brings a perspective that his both clinically grounded and deeply personal. She joined the OCD Sacramento board because she believes that community, education, and honest conversations about OCD are just as essential as good treatment- and because she knows firsthand what it means to need all three.