Jon Hershfield, MFT, is director of The OCD and Anxiety Center of Greater Baltimore in Hunt Valley, MD. He specializes in the mindfulness-based and cognitive behavioral treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and is licensed in the states of Maryland, Virginia, and California. Hershfield is coauthor of The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD, and author of When a Family Member Has OCD. He is a frequent presenter at the annual conferences of both the International OCD Foundation and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and a professional contributor to multiple online OCD-related support groups and blogs.

Shala Nicely, LPC, is a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) therapist in metro Atlanta, GA, specializing in the treatment of OCD and related disorders. She was the keynote speaker for the 2013 International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) conference with the story of her triumph over OCD, “Is Fred in the Refrigerator?” Shala promotes the power of turning personal challenges into service to others as an advocate for The Adversity 2 Advocacy Alliance. She is cofounder, with Jeff Bell, of beyondthedoubt.com, an initiative dedicated to helping people learn to thrive through uncertainty and the fear and doubt it creates. Shala also blogs for Psychology Today, offering an inside perspective on life with OCD and the lessons of uncertainty.

Foreword writer C. Alec Pollard, PhD, is director of the Center for OCD and Anxiety-Related Disorders (COARD), and professor of family and community medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Pollard is a licensed psychologist who works with a range of obsessive-compulsive and anxiety-related disorders, with a special interest in patients ambivalent about or resistant to therapy. He serves as a reviewer for a number of professional journals and conference program committees, and has authored and coauthored more than eighty-five publications, including two books: The Agoraphobia Workbook and Dying of Embarrassment.