Accessing Treatment for OCD: Early intervention in Australia and help-seeking in Aotearoa

We invite and encourage everyone with an interest in OCD – whether individuals, families, health professionals or politicians – to help celebrate and support OCD Awareness Week by attending this free online webinar.

OCD Awareness Week is held each year during the second week of October – Sunday 12th to Saturday 18th in 2025. This event will bring together professional and lived experience expertise on access to OCD treatment in Australia and in Aotearoa New Zealand.

What the webinar will cover:

Early intervention for obsessive-compulsive disorder in Australia

Professor Vlasios Brakoulias will describe practical steps that are being taken to support clinicians to provide early diagnosis and effective treatment in Australia. He will describe his clinical journey and his efforts to provide early intervention to young people suffering from a disorder that still has a long duration of untreated illness and that is associated with significant disability. He will argue that more needs to be done to improve outcomes for people living with OCD.

Navigating the journey to help-seeking for OCD in Aotearoa

Mia Cochrane will discuss her research to understand the challenges faced by Aotearoa’s OCD community. The primary aims of the study were to explore (i) people’s experiences with accessibility to diagnosis and treatment and (ii) the ways people cope in the interim between identification with OCD symptoms and receiving treatment.

Your presenters:

Professor Vlasios Brakoulias: The Professor of Psychiatry at Westmead Hospital with The Faculty of Medicine and Health of The University of Sydney where he works with the Westmead Anxiety Treatment and Research Unit, the Psychiatry OCD and Anxiety Clinic, and the Westmead Clinical Trials Unit. He has a clinical and research interest in obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. He is a board member of the International College of Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders (ICOCS) where he is referred to as the “pioneer” for early intervention in OCD, having established the first early intervention service for OCD and several associated treatment programs. He was the Editor of Australasian Psychiatry for over ten years and is now a Deputy Editor with the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. From 2019 to 2023, Vlasios was the Executive Director of Mental Health for the Western Sydney Local Health District where he led multiple redevelopment projects for the Mental Health Service, including the $540 million Westmead Integrated Mental Health Complex.

Mia Cochrane: Currently studying towards a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Psychology at the University of Otago in Dunedin. Her lived experience of OCD has culminated in a passion for working alongside Aotearoa’s OCD community. As a member of Fixate, a Facebook-based OCD support group for NZers, her research interests are closely aligned with the priorities of that community. She has gained research experience as a student within the Department of Psychology and the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Otago, as well as at the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit. Looking ahead, she aspires to a career in Clinical Psychology and hopes to contribute meaningful research in the space of OCD in Aotearoa.