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Biography

Chloë Volz is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and overall Team Lead of the CAMHS OCD and Related Disorders Service. Her clinical role is to work with some of the most severe, treatment-resistant young people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and to consider ways to improve their treatment outcomes. She often works jointly with colleagues and specifically supports parents through the process of treatment.  In addition, she and colleagues in the team are pioneering Multi-Family Therapy group work with families of young people with OCD as an enhancement to the evidence-based CBT treatment that is offered in the clinic.  

She trained in clinical psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry between 1992 and 1994. She then spent six years gaining child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) and inpatient experience at the SW London and St George’s NHS Trust. Outpatient work covered parenting (parent-child game), running a sleep clinic, working with early feeding difficulties. The inpatient work gave Chloë experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team, assessing and treating young people with complex psychiatric presentations. She started working for South London and Maudsley NHS Trust in the OCD service in 2002.

Chloë is a member of the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP). She is also a member of the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH), where she has run masterclasses in the treatment of OCD. She has taught and trained nationally and internationally.

 

Other roles

Chloë is the Lead Psychologist for CAMHS National and Specialist Outpatient Services which involves supervision and support of senior psychologists, advising on service developments across all N and S services, and representing psychology in the overall operational and strategic planning for N and S services.

Chloë is a trustee on the board of OCD Action, a national OCD charity.

 

Research

Her personal research interest is in unusual and/or complex presentations of OCD and thinking about the implication for assessment, diagnosis and treatment of these cases. An example of this would be transformation obsessions described in papers below. She is also involved in writing up the Multi-Family Therapy group work.

 

Education and Training

• Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol) (1998)
• MSc in Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry (1994)
• B.A. (Hons) Psychology, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (1989)

 

Publications

Volz, C and Heyman I. (2007) Case Series: Transformation Obsession in Young People With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 46:6.

Hilton, K., Turner, C., Krebs, G., Volz, C. and Heyman, I. (2011), Parent Experiences of Attending a Specialist Clinic for Assessment of their Child’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 16: no. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-3588.2011.00607.

Fernandez de la Cruz, L., Barrow, F., Bolhuis, K., Krebs, G., Volz, C., Nakatani, E., Heyman, I. and Mataix-Cols, D. (2013) Sexual Obsessions in Pediatric Obsessive-Complulsive Disorder: Clinical Characteristics and Treatment Outcomes. Depression and Anxiety 00:1–9

Monzani, B., Jassi, A., Heyman, I., Turner, C., Volz, C., & Krebs, G. (2015). Transformation obsessions in paediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder: Clinical characteristics and treatment response to cognitive behaviour therapy. Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, 48, 75-81.

Jassi, A., Lenhard, F., Krebs, G., Gumpert, M., Jolstedt, M., Andrén, P., Nord, M., Aspvall,K., Wahlund,T., Volz,C. & Mataix-Cols, D. (2020). The work and social adjustment scale, youth and parent versions: psychometric evaluation of a brief measure of functional impairment in young people. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 1-8.

OCD - Tools to Help Young People Fight Back! A CBT Manual for Therapists. Cynthia Turner, Georgina Krebs, Chloë Volz. Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2019)

OCD – Tools to Help You Fight Back! A CBT Workbook for Young People. Cynthia Turner, Georgina Krebs, Chloë Volz. Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2019)