Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) can take all the fun out of life. You feel like you’re stuck in an endless loop, doing rituals to try keep distressing thoughts out of your head. But they keep coming back, and fighting with OCD seems to make it stronger. It’s exhausting, and peace and happiness seem out of your reach.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
I specialize in helping people reclaim their lives from OCD using exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy, the evidence-based therapy for OCD.
- I provide ERP therapy to clients with OCD in the state of Georgia in the US (via online therapy due to the pandemic).
- I write books, including Is Fred in the Refrigerator? Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life and Everyday Mindfulness for OCD.
- I write three blogs about how to use ERP to tame OCD.
- I produce the free Shoulders Back! Tips & Resources for Taming OCD email newsletter.
To help you manage OCD during the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic, please see my COVID-19 / Coronavirus and OCD News & Resources Center. I’m currently taking new clients for my wait list, and you can learn more on my FAQs page.
BLOGS ABOUT TAMING 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 journey to tame OCD.
I also post on the Beyond the Doubt Psychology Today blog, where OCD advocate and author Jeff Bell and I share an inside perspective on life with OCD and the lessons of uncertainty.
If you’re pressed for time and would like some action-focused tips & tricks to help you tame OCD and reclaim your life, then check out my new FredTalks blog, where I share posts you can read in a minute or two that are based on stories and concepts from my memoir, Is Fred in the Refrigerator? Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life.
You can browse my blog posts below, or go to a list of all of them. As you probably already know :), my blogs are not a replacement for therapy, and I encourage all readers who have OCD to find a competent ERP therapist. See the IOCDF treatment provider database for a provider near you.
Managing OCD about Coronavirus
Because of the toll the current coronavirus situation could take on people with OCD, Reid Wilson, PhD; Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT; and I have developed the following tips for managing OCD fears about coronavirus. We hope they will help you feel empowered and supported, so that even in this uncertain time, you can keep OCD from running your life.
3 Ways to Power Up Your OCD Therapy
Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that the people who tame OCD most effectively are those who make three strategic shifts in their attitude toward not only exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy, the evidence-based therapy for OCD, but to life itself. Read 3 Ways to Power Up Your OCD Therapy on my Psychology Today blog to learn what they do.
When Fear Stops Making Decisions for You
I’ve let fear make a fair number of decisions in my life. But no more. I put my shoulders back and do the things I want to do, acting like all the noise in my head is irrelevant. And you can, too!
An OCD-Taming Attitude: Making OCD Pass Out
Have you ever thought about taking the same arrogant attitude with your OCD that it takes with you when you do ERP therapy? Watch this video to watch how I approached ERP with a new attitude that helped me turn my life around.
