iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I’m running an online consultation group through the IOCDF Training Institute on Thursday afternoons this fall for clinicians seeking to grow their clinical skills related to co-occurring trauma/PTSD in OCD treatment. Limited to 4 slots, registration opens August 24th at noon eastern!

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

“When a patient with OCD has experienced trauma, how do I determine whether the trauma is clinically relevant - and if it is, what do I do differently?” I’m looking forward to joining @sheppardpratt.bsky.social to dive deep on this question as part of their OCD & Anxiety Lecture Series /1

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

disseminate this study far and wide so we could recruit a large enough sample to ask the questions so many of us in this field have wondered but have never had the data to answer. Check out the full paper at www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... and follow along for more in the future 🇺🇸 10/

sciencedirect.com

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

..fears of downward mobility and financial instability in a region characterized by economic inequality, emphasis on self-reliance, and weaker social safety nets. There is so much more to come from this work, and I want to thank the countless people who worked so hard to 9/

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

..illness and psychological vulnerability where rigid social hierarchies & weaker public institutions are common (DS), and, conversely, greater pluralism and community orientation (ML). Finally, poverty obsessions were 70% more prevalent in the Deep South, perhaps reflecting 8/

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

..values of financial security and social status, making aging less threatening. Disability/diagnostic status obsessions were 33% less prevalent in the Midlands, 31% less prevalent in Tidewater, and 38% more prevalent in the Deep South, perhaps reflecting stigma surrounding 7/

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Racism and aging obsessions showed weaker effects, with no region demonstrating moderate or greater differences in racism obsessions and only New Netherland showing a 32% decrease in aging obsessions - perhaps reflecting the ubiquitousness of these themes and the stronger NN 6/..

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

..and diverse yet unassimilated communities exposing individuals to a wide range of attitudes toward sexual orientation expression (NN). Gender identity obsessions were 76% less prevalent in New France, perhaps again reflecting the permissive attitude toward diversity in NF. 5/

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Sexual orientation obsessions were 61% less prevalent in New France, 33% less prevalent in the Left Coast, and 45% more prevalent in New Netherland - perhaps reflecting norms of individual self-expression within socially integrated communities with low identity stigma (NF & LC)4/

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

sexual orientation, gender identity, racism, aging, disability/diagnostic status, and poverty) were more or less likely in different regions based on those regions’ sociocultural and political identities. We found regional differences, but not always in the expected direction. 3/

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

This large scale, geographically representative study is rooted in the sociocultural framework developed by @colinwoodard.bsky.social differentiating 11 culturally distinct regions of the U.S. In this first paper, we wanted to see whether identity-based presentations (obsessions about 2/

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Extremely excited to share this 🚨new research🚨 coming out of The National OCD Survey 🇺🇸 This study was born out of the thought “wouldn’t it be cool if…?” and 3 years and 5k participants later, we can finally answer the question: Does OCD differ across regions of the U.S.? 1/

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Future research should validate our proposed benchmarks with separate measures of impairment, but this represents an exciting first step in offering severity descriptors for the CAPS. The first 50 link clicks get free access: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RXZAX... /4

urldefense.com

Psychometric Evaluation of the English Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5–Child and Adolescent Version (CAPS-CA-5)

Despite its widespread use for diagnosing and assessing the severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among youth, psychometric evaluation of the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for Childr...

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

.. to create severity/impairment benchmarks to assist with clinical interpretation of total CAPS-CA-5 scores. This is the first of any attempt to do so with any version of the CAPS. Our benchmarks varied by sex and age, though there was more overlap in benchmarks for males. /3

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

.. youth and young adults aged 8-20 across Texas. As expected, we found support for internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent & discriminant validity. Agreement on PTSD diagnosis with the MINI-KID was moderate (k=.56). Most exciting, however, was our attempt /2

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

🚨New research🚨 out of the Texas Childhood Trauma Research Network. Despite being a widely used diagnostic interview for PTSD, there has been no psychometric evaluation of the English version of the CAPS-CA-5. We evaluated its validity and reliability in 3134 trauma-exposed /1

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I am so grateful for the push to really sit down and think through this proposed framework. I hope this work inspires more research to better understand why compulsions emerge and persist after trauma. Paper available for free for 50 days at www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... /9.

sciencedirect.com

“Shielding and Healing”: A Functional Framework for Conceptualizing Trauma-Related Compulsions in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Check access to the full text by signing in through your organization.

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

..and differential diagnostic assessment via “Finding the Seam” between these trauma- and OCD-related pathways to inform a split-response prevention approach where OCD processes are resisted while trauma processes are gently processed and cognitively restructured. /8

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

..safety and certainty through harm prevention (“shielding”) and regulation of trauma responses (“healing”). I review a variety of harm prevention, certainty seeking, emotion regulation, and moral absolution compulsions and end with clinical guidance for thorough functional /7

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

..through negative reinforcement of short-term relief offered by compulsions and neural systems biased toward habit formation - one learns they are “certainly safe” and “safely certain” because of their compulsions! Thus, trauma-related compulsions represent efforts to achieve /6

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

..distress and mitigate perceived threat and doubt then become compulsive through hyperactive CSTC circuitry creating a positive feedback loop of urges to ritualize strengthened by habitual responding, thereby increasing future urges. Altogether, fear and doubt persist.. /5

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

..and errors where none exist. Trauma-related memory disturbance is further amplified by OCD-related executive dysfunction and impairments in visuospatial and nonverbal memory, increasing mistrust in memory and driving urgent efforts to obtain certainty. Attempts to regulate../4

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Threat endures both because of these trauma processes and also through OCD-related threat overestimation and inflated responsibility, impaired fear extinction learning, and hyperactive fear circuitry and performance and error monitoring that trigger excessive signals for harm…/3

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Borrowing from Ehlers and Clark’s seminal cognitive model of PTSD, I propose that OCD-specific neurobiological and genetic vulnerabilities are activated by trauma exposure and compound trauma-related enduring threat caused by negative appraisals and memory disturbance. /2

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

🚨Paper in Press🚨 Excited about this paper I’ve wanted to write for a long time and finally had the push to do for this Special Issue on PTSD. This work provides a novel functional framework for understanding the emergence and maintenance of trauma-related compulsions in OCD. /1

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

I’m so sorry for your loss. The heartache of losing a pet is so deep. River was clearly a very loved boy.

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

offering a clearer understanding of the unique burden of comorbid PTSD beyond other comorbidities. This study builds on growing literature highlighting the need to properly assess and treat PTSD in the context of OCD, including in Latino populations. Read more: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Clinical presentation of comorbid obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder in Latin American individuals

Comorbid obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with more a severe overall clinical presentation c…

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Across the board, those with OCD+PTSD evidenced the most severe and complex clinical presentation. The largest difference was found for quality of life. Findings re- avoidance and pathological doubt were novel, and this is the first study to differentiate OCD alone and OCD w other comorbidities, /3

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Across OCD+PTSD, OCD w other comorbidities, and OCD only groups, we compared OCD severity, symptom presentation, OCD-related insight, avoidance, pathological doubt, and quality of life. We also compared # and type of comorbidities between OCD+PTSD and OCD w other comorbidities./2

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

🚨 New publication 🚨 Comorbid OCD+PTSD is associated with a more severe clinical presentation, yet most existing research has focused on White, non-Hispanic/Latino populations, limiting generalizability. This replication/extension paper used data from the LATINO study. /1

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

sense of control or predictability intended to prevent revictimization. This work suggests that the function underlying compulsions may differ as a function of trauma and that these associations are important to address in treatment. Article: www.researchgate.net/publication/... /7

researchgate.net

PDF | Resisting obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) compulsions is a key predictor of exposure and response prevention (ERP) effectiveness, yet... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on Re...

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

suggesting that sexual abuse may make the emergence of these behaviors more likely and, when combined, interfere with effective treatment, likely because they are serving trauma-related functions to 1) remove perceived contamination related to sexual violations and 2) obtain a /6

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

the broader structure, which included only picking and pulling, offering further support for the unique association between trauma exposure and just right. Longer lengths of treatment stay were associated with sexual abuse through Cleanliness and Certainty Seeking compulsions, /5

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

evidenced many similarities to the more general OCD structure, with notable exceptions. An Absolution factor of behaviors intended to absolve perceived wrongdoing emerged only in the trauma sample, and Body Focus was characterized by more just right behaviors compared to /4

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

analysis, we sought to conceptualize the underlying function of compulsions based on trauma using factor analyses, and evaluate how clusters of compulsions may interact with trauma type to impact treatment outcomes. The factor structure that came from the trauma only subsample /3

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

…which evidenced moderate agreement with the YBOCS yet went beyond many predetermined categories. We found these compulsions were prevalent at different rates and differentially impacted treatment outcomes based on trauma exposure (Pinciotti et al 2025). In this tertiary /2

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Trying to get back on my 🚨publication alert🚨 game. Here’s a new one using really unique mixed methods data from intensive OCD treatment. In an earlier paper (Pinciotti et al 2023), I extracted 5540 compulsions from patient charts and coded into 62 discrete compulsions… /1

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

On this one year anniversary of the devastating LA Fires, please consider participating in and sharing this study about the mental health impact of the fires one year later. Anonymous survey available at: bcmpsych.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Looking forward to presenting at the virtual OCD Training School Learning Summit March 5-6, 2026! Join me by registering at ocdtrainingschool.com/ocd-training-school-learning-summit/4yk3k Use EARLYBIRDSUMMIT through Nov 18 for the early bird discount of $175 for 28 CEs and fun experiential sessions!

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Reposted by Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD

Brian Feinstein (he/him) @bfeinsteinphd.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

I’m recruiting a new postdoc to join my team at RFU! If you’re interested in LGBTQ+ youth, bi+ mental health, and/or longitudinal/ESM data, consider applying! Prefer a Feb/Mar start date, but open to later. Prefer in-person, but open to remote. For more: workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...

workforcenow.adp.com

Recruitment

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Sharing a great consultation opportunity for licensed therapists who want to learn more about supporting LGBTQIA+ clients through OCD treatment 👇🏻

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

…listen and share! The brief, anonymous survey is available at tinyurl.com/57U9Y3PM or you can email us at NationalOCDSurvey@bcm.edu. /4

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

…and to @colinwoodard.bsky.social for his pioneering work on the eleven distinct regions that define the United States, which we’ve relied on heavily for this study. As you'll hear in the episode, we are still seeking participants 18+ with OCD in South Florida OR southern Louisiana, so please /3

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

This study has been a real highlight in my career and after two full years of recruitment and 3,000+ participants, it's very gratifying to be able to share these findings! This study has truly taken a village and I’m so grateful to my study team at the @bcmstorchlab.bsky.social, my collaborators, /2

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

I joined Kevin Foss & Jon Hershfield on the FearCast Podcast to talk about The National OCD Survey and how & why OCD themes like contamination, moral and religious scrupulosity, and sexual orientation are more or less common in different regions of the United States: youtu.be/ZU4cw4Pniuk?... /1

youtu.be

#241- The National OCD Survey with Dr. Caitlin Pinciotti and Jon Hershfield

YouTube video by FearCast Podcast

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Reposted by Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD

Brian Feinstein (he/him) @bfeinsteinphd.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

📢 Call for unpublished data for a meta-analysis on bisexual people's experiences of "double discrimination" (from heterosexual and lesbian/gay sources)! Details: tinyurl.com/yc75amzb Email/DM by 9/5/25! @apadivision44.bsky.social @abct-sgm-sig.bsky.social @eupha-sgmh.bsky.social

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Caitlin Pinciotti, PhD @cmpinciotti.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

They are, so pure and uncomplicated. My boy Otis ❤️

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