The Weill Cornell Pediatric OCD, Anxiety and Tic Disorders Program (POCAT) is a sub-specialty clinic operated through the Weill Cornell Medical College Physicians' Organization. Led by Shannon Bennett, PhD, and Justin Mohatt, MD, POCAT provides a team-based approach to treating children and adolescents utilizing state-of-the-art evidence-based practices that can be applied along a continuum of intensity, from regular outpatient visits through groups and individual sessions multiple days a week through our intensive treatment program.
Treatment modalities include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exposure with Response Prevention, Habit Reversal Therapy, supportive and psychodynamic psychotherapies, group therapy, parent guidance, and medication evaluation and management. The structure of the clinic allows for flexibility in treatment planning, rapid assessment in crisis situations, prompt access to your providers, and a high level of privacy and discretion in a fee-for-service model of personalized care.
POCAT provides one of the only Intensive Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Anxiety Treatment Programs in the region. The intensive program consists of up to ten hours a week of active treatment, with an emphasis on group treatment. The goal of the program will be to provide short-term intensive treatment to target symptoms using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) treatment strategies. Our program provides evaluation, psychoeducation, group therapy, individual sessions, parent sessions, and the option for medication evaluation and management. This program addresses OCD as well as other non-OCD anxiety disorders, such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Separation Anxiety Disorder, Social Phobia, Selective Mutism, and specific phobias. It is appropriate for a broad range of children and teens with moderately to severely impairing symptoms, and their families. This model of intensive care can be an alternative to hospitalization or step down from hospitalization. In addition, it provides a way for families without easy access to expert treatment to receive intensive care in a time-limited manner, and then return to their home community. (Find out more about the Intensive OCD and Anxiety Treatment Program.) For all families, we provide a specific and thorough plan for aftercare. For those returning to home communities outside New York City, this includes a plan for continuing to practice newly learned skills to maintain treatment gains, coordination with a treatment provider in your home community for continuity of care, and the opportunity for follow-up visits with us by phone or in person, if needed. For those in nearby communities, we provide the added option of ongoing follow-up treatment in our clinic.
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