I got into this work because OCD is routinely misunderstood.
I stayed in it because too many people with OCD feel unseen and unheard.
I'm Dr Celin Gelgec, Clinical Psychologist, director of Melbourne Wellbeing Group, clinician educator, AHPRA Board approved Supervisor, and someone who has spent the better part of fifteen years thinking carefully about what OCD treatment actually looks like in practice.
The Clinical Story
My clinical focus on OCD began during my Clinical Doctorate training at Deakin University, when I completed a placement at The Melbourne Clinic's OCD Inpatient Programme — a specialised residential OCD programme in Australia. What I found there shaped everything that came after.
The programme saw some of the most complex presentations in the country. Referrals came from all over the Southern Hemisphere. The clinical work was rigorous, demanding, and deeply specific, and it made clear to me early on that treating OCD well, requires a different kind of attention than most generalist training provides.
I stayed on after graduating for a further three years. During that time, I ran groups and contributed to reviewing and developing the clinical materials used with patients. I left in 2013 to build my own outpatient practice, which became Melbourne Wellbeing Group.
Since then, my clinical focus has remained on OCD across the lifespan — from children and adolescents to adults navigating complex, high-risk-feeling, and frequently misdiagnosed presentations. I've published research on OCD and emotion regulation, developed clinician training, authored a clinical treatment manual, supervised many psychologists, and spent more time than is probably healthy thinking about why this condition is so consistently misunderstood in everyday clinical practice.
THE GAP THAT I KEEP NOTICING
OCD is one of the most well-researched conditions we have. The evidence base for treatment is strong. And yet, in practice, it's routinely missed, misdiagnosed, under-treated, and, perhaps most frustratingly, treated in ways that quietly maintain it rather than shift it.
That's not a knowledge problem. Most clinicians who work with OCD know what Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is. They've read the textbooks. They've attended the training days.
The problem is nuance. It's knowing what to do when ERP stalls. It's recognising the compulsion that doesn't look like one. It's understanding how family accommodation works, why challenging thoughts (i.e., CBT) can become reassurance, when the hierarchy needs to change, and how to hold firm on the treatment model without being rigid about it.
That's the gap I've built my work around — and it's what I keep coming back to, whether I'm supervising a colleague, writing training content, or thinking about what I'd most want someone to understand about OCD if I could only say one thing.
Doctor of Clinical Psychology — Deakin University
Bachelor of Applied Science (Psychology), Honours — Deakin University
AHPRA registered Clinical Psychologist (clinical endorsement)
AHPRA-approved clinical supervisor
Member, AAPi
Director, Melbourne Wellbeing Group
Clinical placement and extended post-doctoral work, OCD Inpatient Programme, The Melbourne Clinic
Published researcher — including peer-reviewed work on emotion regulation and OCD (Yap et al., Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2018)
Author of a clinical OCD treatment manual (MB-ERP protocol)
Podcast co-host — Breaking the Rules, with Dr Victoria Miller
MY CREDENTIALS
