Prof Lynne Drummond

Prof Lynne Drummond is one of the UK's most experienced OCD specialists. She trained under Isaac Marks, a pioneer of exposure therapy and one of the founders of modern exposure-based care for OCD, and Stuart Montgomery, known for his work on medication for anxiety and depression. At a time when health anxiety was still considered a subset of OCD, these were the people shaping how compulsive disorders were understood.

She has been a Consultant Psychiatrist with South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust since 1985, and for 35 years was lead clinician for the nationally commissioned service for severe, enduring OCD and related disorders. She set up and led it: the only 24-hour staffed dedicated NHS unit for OCD and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) in the country.

She has published over 120 articles and chapters across CBT, OCD, hoarding, anxiety disorders, and exercise and mental health, and is the author of five best-selling books on CBT and OCD, most recently Everything You Need to Know About Hoarding — a Cambridge University Press best-seller in 2025.

Now an Honorary Consultant at her former Trust and a Visiting Professor at the University of Hertfordshire, she holds the qualifications MRCP and FRCPsych and concentrates on teaching, research, and working with public bodies to improve access to treatment. She has also worked extensively with the media — television, radio, podcasts, and the national press — to get accessible information about OCD and its treatment to a lay audience.

We spoke to Prof Drummond about the relationship between OCD and health anxiety — why intrusive thoughts about illness follow the same compulsive cycle, and what the evidence says about breaking it.