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. In recent years, I’ve also expanded the blog to include descriptions of tools and techniques I’ve found helpful in my own recovery.
You can browse the Aha! Moments below, or go to a list of all of them. Sometimes the posts will be found on this website and sometimes I post them on my Beyond the Doubt Psychology Today blog, and in that case, I provide links to each of the Psychology Today posts.
As you probably already know :), my blogs are not a replacement for therapy, and I encourage all readers to find a competent ERP therapist. See the IOCDF treatment provider database for a provider near you.
Q&A for Interrupting OCD’s Mental Rituals with “May or May Not”
Here are the questions submitted about my blog Interrupt OCD’s Mental Rituals with “May or May Not” (MOMN) and my answers.
The Unintended Consequences of Saying OCD Can Be Cured
Realistic expectations of recovery are so important for the well-being of people with OCD. Because if people with OCD have unrealistic expectations they cannot achieve, they are incredibly likely to beat themselves up, which hurts them and their recoveries. Read more on my Psychology Today Beyond the Doubt blog.
Interrupt OCD’s Mental Rituals with “May or May Not”
If you have trouble using Shoulders Back/Man in the Park because you keep transacting with your OCD in your mind, otherwise known as “mentally ritualizing” or what some call “pure-O,” read about an ERP technique that’s a bridge tool to help you develop the strength to do Shoulders Back/Man in the Park effectively.
