Individual
Psychotherapy for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Treatment for Children, Teens, and Adults

Living with OCD can feel exhausting, confusing, and isolating. Many children, teens, and adults spend months—or even years—struggling with symptoms before receiving an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. OCD is often misunderstood and can look very different from the stereotypes people see in the media. While some individuals experience visible compulsions, others struggle primarily with intrusive thoughts, mental rituals, reassurance-seeking, avoidance, or other less obvious symptoms.

I specialize in the treatment of OCD across the lifespan and work with children, adolescents, and adults experiencing a wide range of OCD presentations, including:

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• Contamination OCD

• Harm OCD

• "Just Right" OCD

• Responsibility OCD

• Checking OCD

• Health Anxiety and Illness-Related OCD

• Relationship OCD (ROCD)

• Scrupulosity/Religious OCD

• Sexual Orientation OCD (SO-OCD)

• Pedophilia OCD (POCD)

• Sexual Orientation OCD

• Existential OCD

• Perinatal and Postpartum OCD

• Emetophobia (fear of vomiting) when OCD-related

• Sensorimotor OCD

• Moral Scrupulosity

• Magical Thinking OCD

• Pure Obsessional OCD ("Pure O")

• Body-Focused Obsessions and Related OCD Presentations

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Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

The gold-standard treatment for OCD is Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), an evidence-based treatment that helps individuals gradually face feared situations, thoughts, images, sensations, and uncertainties while resisting compulsive behaviors.

In treatment, we work together to develop a personalized exposure hierarchy and engage in exposures both during therapy sessions and as structured homework between sessions. Exposures are designed collaboratively and tailored to each person's goals, values, and readiness.

Equally important is the response prevention component of treatment. Response prevention involves reducing or eliminating the compulsions that keep OCD going. These may include:

• Avoidance

• Checking behaviors

• Reassurance-seeking

• Mental reviewing

• Mental compulsions

• Repeating behaviors

• Ritualistic behaviors

• Confessing

• Researching or excessive information-seeking

• Seeking certainty

• Asking others to participate in rituals

Through ERP, clients learn that anxiety and uncertainty can be tolerated without engaging in compulsions, allowing OCD to lose its grip over time.

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Family Involvement and Psychoeducation

OCD rarely affects only the individual. Family members, spouses, partners, and loved ones are often impacted by OCD as well. Many people naturally try to help reduce their loved one's distress, but without realizing it, they may accidentally reinforce OCD symptoms by participating in rituals, providing reassurance, modifying routines, or helping the person avoid feared situations.

For this reason, I provide extensive psychoeducation to parents, spouses, and other supportive family members when appropriate and beneficial to the client's treatment goals. Understanding how OCD operates allows loved ones to respond in ways that support recovery rather than unintentionally strengthening the disorder.

I take a collaborative approach and often work closely with parents, spouses, partners, and other important support people when it is clinically appropriate and helpful to the client.

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SPACE Treatment for Family Accommodation

In addition to ERP, I incorporate Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE), an evidence-based parent-focused treatment that helps caregivers reduce accommodations that may unintentionally maintain anxiety, OCD, or separation anxiety symptoms.

Family accommodations often come from a place of love and concern. Parents and partners frequently want to help their loved one or child feel better in the moment, but repeated reassurance, participation in rituals, avoidance of triggers, or changes to family routines can unintentionally strengthen anxiety over time.

Through SPACE treatment, family members learn how to respond with support and confidence while gradually reducing accommodations that interfere with long-term recovery.

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Integrative and Compassionate Treatment

While ERP remains the foundation of treatment, I also incorporate components of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT) when appropriate.

ACT helps individuals develop greater psychological flexibility by learning to make room for uncomfortable thoughts and feelings while moving toward what matters most to them. Rather than trying to eliminate intrusive thoughts, clients learn to change their relationship with them and live more fully in accordance with their values.

Inference-Based CBT (I-CBT) focuses on helping individuals recognize and disengage from the faulty reasoning processes that contribute to obsessive doubt. This approach can be particularly helpful for individuals who become trapped in endless "what if" scenarios and hypothetical possibilities.

My goal is to provide treatment that is evidence-based, collaborative, and individualized so that clients and their families can regain freedom from OCD and return to living fuller, more meaningful lives.