13: Brave Together Podcast - Jessica Patay, Susanna Peace Lovell and Dr. Zoe Shaw - Episode 13
13: Brave Together Podcast - Jessica Patay, Susanna Peace Lovell and Dr. Zoe Shaw - Episode 13

UK Health Radio Podcast

Conversation focuses on obsessive compulsive disorder in both adults and children, with Dr. Jen Rapkin sharing clinical knowledge and family experience. The hosts and guest talk through symptoms, ERP treatment, the toll on families, and practical ways to face difficult feelings without numbing them.

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45:38•15 Apr 2026

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OCD, Big Feelings and Caregiving: A Candid Conversation with Dr. Jen Rapkin

Episode Overview

OCD is far more than neatness and can severely affect daily life through intrusive thoughts, rituals and hidden mental compulsions.
In children, repetitive behaviours, redo patterns and intense frustration (for example with toys) can be warning signs worth assessing.
Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is described as the gold-standard treatment, focusing on facing triggers, resisting rituals and sitting with anxiety.
Naming OCD as something separate, like “annoying brain talk”, can help kids and adults talk back to it and reduce shame.
Body-based awareness and distress tolerance can support both OCD treatment and the urge to numb difficult feelings with distractions or substances.

“One thing with ocd is it's very sneaky and it always changes the goalpost on you, right?”

How do individuals turn their lives around after addiction? Here, the focus is on parents raising children with disabilities and mental health conditions, and what happens when OCD joins the mix. Brave Together Podcast, airing on UK Health Radio, brings caregiving mums right into a candid chat with naturopathic physician Dr. Jen Rapkin, hosted by Jessica Patay and co-host Susanna Peace Lovell. This conversation centres on obsessive compulsive disorder as both a clinical condition and a family experience. Dr.

Rapkin speaks as a professional, as someone who lives with OCD herself, and as a mum to a son who has what she calls “just right OCD”. You’ll hear them unpack why OCD is far more than “being tidy” and how it can, in Dr. Rapkin’s words, “actually destroy somebody's life” through intrusive thoughts, rituals, and even invisible mental compulsions.

She explains how OCD can be missed in kids when behaviours look like tantrums or perfectionism, sharing the story of her son’s distress over Lego and repetitive doorway rituals during lockdown in Spain. A big part of the conversation dives into exposure and response prevention (ERP), the gold-standard therapy for OCD. Dr. Rapkin breaks it down into three parts: facing the trigger, resisting the ritual, and “sitting with that unbearable anxiety” without giving in.

She’s honest that it’s “brutal”, especially for children, but also clear that “the more you fight it and the more that you can say no to it, the quieter it becomes.” Along the way, the hosts link OCD to wider coping habits many parents know too well—grabbing a phone, chocolate, or “a glass of wine” to avoid feelings—and Dr. Rapkin offers body-based tools for feeling emotions instead of numbing them.

Parents who suspect OCD, or who are juggling their own anxiety or addictive coping, may find this conversation both clarifying and comforting. Could naming “annoying brain talk” in your own life be the first step toward loosening its grip?

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