Let’s face it….obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) can take all the fun out of life. Your mind is filled with distressing thoughts or images that you didn’t ask for…and don’t want. You feel like you are stuck in an endless loop, doing rituals you feel you need to do to keep those awful thoughts or images out of your head. But they just keep coming back. In fact, sometimes fighting with the OCD seems to make it stronger. It’s exhausting. And it feels like happiness and peace are always out of your reach.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
There is hope for people suffering from OCD. According to the International OCD Foundation, the majority of people with OCD will benefit from either medication or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The type of CBT that has been proven by research to be the most effective for OCD is exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP).
I specialize in helping people take back their lives from OCD with an individualized treatment program based on ERP. Using an empathetic, caring approach, I customize the treatment program based on your needs to help you win back your life from OCD.
AHA! MOMENTS
I’m always thinking about how books, movies, and events apply to people suffering from OCD and related disorders, anxiety or depression. Which means that I’m also thinking about how they apply to me. Because yes, along with being an OCD and anxiety disorders therapist, I also have OCD.
OCD can influence your life in subtle (and not so subtle) ways that can affect how you view the world, how you approach treatment, how you manage your recovery, and how you function in relationships with others and the world around you. Often when I’m reading books or watching movies or videos, even ones that have nothing to do with OCD, I have moments of epiphany where I say, “Aha! That applies to people who have OCD!” In my Aha! Moments blog posts, I use my own experience with OCD to explain these epiphanies and how I apply them to my own recovery.
Q&A for Shoulders Back! The Man in the Park
Here are the questions submitted about my blog post Shoulders Back! The Man in the Park and my answers. [...]
Shoulders Back! The Man in the Park
The man in the park metaphor is one I use all the time with clients to explain how to most effectively handle OCD.
The Best Ted Talks for People with OCD
I wrote a 5-part series for my Beyond the Doubt Psychology Today blog called The Best TED Talks for People with OCD, plus an additional post related to Part 4 about how to feel more connected to others.
