{"podcast":{"title":"Inside Mental Health","slug":"inside-mental-health-432530","podcast_index_feed_id":432530,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/RED2429845607","website_url":"http://psychcentral.com/show","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/ba92720a-93ce-11eb-8c31-13ab0e12c00c/image/987bdf0d45c3c36bbfc2c1028e7068ca.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"Healthline Media","episode_count":484,"summary":"Award-winning weekly podcast that approaches psychology and mental health in an accessible way. Listen as our host Gabe Howard speaks candidly with experts, celebrities, and other notables to break down complex topics into simpler terms. Listen now and share widely.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/inside-mental-health-432530"},"episode":{"title":"Hollywood Often Gets OCD Wrong: Actor & Director Speak Out","slug":"hollywood-often-gets-ocd-wrong-actor-director-speak-out","published_at":"2025-10-16T04:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/inside-mental-health-432530/hollywood-often-gets-ocd-wrong-actor-director-speak-out","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/inside-mental-health-432530","url":"https://psychcentral.com/blog/podcast-hollywood-often-gets-ocd-wrong-actor-director-speak-out/","audio_url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/RVOHE8195965020.mp3?updated=1759942848","summary":"Hollywood has never shied away from portraying obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) — but it often gets it wrong. Typically, OCD is reduced to a punchline, a quirky habit, or a stereotype about neatness and handwashing. In this episode, TV & movie actor Rachel Alig and award-winning filmmaker Sam Sabawi take us behind the scenes of their acclaimed short film “For All I Know” to show how OCD can — and should — be portrayed with truth and compassion. Sam, who lives with OCD, explains why lazy writing has distorted public understanding and how he used his lived experience to create an authentic story. Rachel shares the emotional depth required to embody a character with OCD, and how she avoided the clichés that Hollywood often leans on. Together, they reveal how real therapy techniques — especially exposure and response prevention (ERP) — were brought into the film to highlight the messy, ongoing reality of recovery. Listener takeaways: how Hollywood depictions have shaped public misconceptions of OCD and why the process of authentically portraying OCD on screen matters what OCD actually is — and isn’t why ERP therapy is the gold standard for treatment This is a rare insider look at mental illness through the eyes of two industry leaders determined to change how we see OCD. Listen now! Sam and Rachel's Award-Winning Short Film About OCD, For All I Know, is available on YouTube now. (Viewing Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vwk4UPHKp0) Our guest, Sam Sabawi, is a two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose work spans narrative fiction, documentary, and unscripted formats. A five-time Telly Award winner and two-time Anthem Gold recipient, Sabawi brings over a decade of experience in visual storytelling across scripted film, development, and branded content. His recent shor…","meta_description":"Hollywood has never shied away from portraying obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) — but it often gets it wrong. Typically, OCD is reduced to a punchline,…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1390,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/inside-mental-health-432530/episodes/hollywood-often-gets-ocd-wrong-actor-director-speak-out/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/inside-mental-health-432530/hollywood-often-gets-ocd-wrong-actor-director-speak-out.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}