About the Founder
The path that led Brian Coombs to the creation of the OCD Foundation of Utah was his own life, filled equally with flamboyant successes and deep and painful internal and physical struggles, which uniquely qualifies him to assist others.
Educated at the University of Utah and married at 24, he worked two jobs to ensure his family’s well-being while establishing himself in a financial planning practice, an endeavor that brought admirable monetary rewards. However, Brian had a growing belief that the shame, stigma, and the lack of transparency that exists in most individual’s attitudes towards mental and emotional instability, especially in this community, were a huge problem. As an open and authentic communicator himself, he often found others opening up to him about their own hidden struggles with mental and emotional demons.
That open sharing, he found, was healing, in itself. He believes a much larger and more communal openness is needed. While maintaining his financial practice, he received a clinical masters degree from the University of Southern California to further his knowledge and clinical expertise regarding OCD and related disorders.
“Through awareness, the OCD Foundation of Utah will advance this perspective and hopefully lead people to share more authentically, and to openly seek help for themselves, friends, and family. Brian believes that emotional and mental imperfections are so common among us that we shouldn’t have to hide them in order to be acceptable in the mainstream. His life has been a model for this. He hopes to inspire this belief in others as well, while creating awareness of the prevalence of mental and emotional illness here and everywhere.
Suze Harrington LCSW, President of BioBehavioral Interventions
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