You are more than your thoughts.
Therapy for OCD and related disorders
Are obsessions, intrusive thoughts, or compulsions running your life?
Obsessions are recurrent or persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are intrusive and unwanted.
Compulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that someone feels driven to perform.
If you are dealing with obsessions or compulsions, you know that they can be distracting, distressing, and interfere with your productivity and pleasure in life. They may also cause shame or embarrassment, and make you act in ways that other people don’t understand. If you need relief from the following conditions or symptoms, I’m here to help.
Obsessions
Intrusive Thoughts
Compulsions
Body Dysmorphia Disorder (obsessing over flaws related to the body)
You are ready to take control of your thoughts.
How therapy works
You can learn to control your intrusive thoughts.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a treatment for OCD that uses two scientifically based techniques to change a person’s behavior and thoughts: exposure and response prevention (ERP) and cognitive therapy. ERP is conducted by a cognitive-behavioral therapist who has special training in treating OCD.
Not all mental health professionals are trained in ERP, so it’s important to find one who is.
An ERP therapist will encourage you to engage in exposure exercises during your therapy sessions. This helps you engage in more exposures outside of the office. Doing exposures in the real world will help you to resist your compulsions and learn to embrace uncertainty rather than fear it.
If this is something you are ready to try, we will work together to gradually put you in situations where you will face the fears or thoughts that distress you. This is done at your pace; I will never force you to do anything that you do not want to do. Sometimes, we even start out with visualizations to get you ready to do exposure in real life. There are a lot of strategies for helping you to confront your fears in a way that will decrease the frequency and intensity of them, which frees you from their grasp. Another strategy that is commonly used alongside ERP is Cognitive Therapy. For OCD and related conditions, cognitive therapy helps you to understand when the brain is sending error messages, and how to respond to them in new ways. We may focus on the meanings you attach to certain thoughts or experiences, or help you to judge the accuracy of thoughts that are recurring and learn to replace inaccurate thoughts with more helpful and realistic thoughts.
Therapy for obsessions and compulsions can help you…
Decrease distressing thoughts
Free up time spent doing compulsions
Help you relate differently to your fears
Improve enjoyment and performance in your academic and/or professional pursuits
Improve relationships with family, friends, and co-workers
Frequently asked questions about TREATMENT FOR OBSESSIONS and COMPULSIONS
FAQs
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The first step is for you to describe your obsessions and compulsions. Then you and your therapist will arrange them in a list, starting with things that don’t bother you much to things that are the most frightening. Next, the therapist will work with you to face your fear of something on your list, starting with the easiest. Let’s say you have an obsessive fear of germs in public places. Your therapist will design a task for you that exposes you to that fear, such as touching a public doorknob. Here’s where the response-prevention part comes in- If your usual response is to wash your hands immediately after touching the doorknob, the therapist would ask you to wait before you wash your hands. As you repeat this exposure task, the therapist will ask you to wait longer and longer before washing your hands. Over time, this gradual exposure and delayed response would help you learn to control your fear of germs in public places without washing your hands. This new way of confronting your fears directly will lead to fewer and less intense fears or obsessions about germs. Your brain learns that nothing bad happens when you stop performing compulsive rituals. Learn more.
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Contact me to schedule a 10-15 minute phone consultation to see if my services are right for you. Learn more.