ONLINE AND IN-PERSON COUNSELING IN PEORIA AND THROUGHOUT ILLINOIS
OCD Therapy
You’re ready to regain control.
OCD. AKA “the doubting disorder.”
Life with OCD is a life full of obsessional doubts. They might sound like:
“What if I didn’t lock the door?”
“What if I did something hurtful?”
“What if I could hurt a child?”
“What if there are germs on my hands?”
“What if I can’t stop noticing my breathing?”
“What if I don’t love my partner?”
“What if I commit a horrible sin?”
You care deeply about your values, morals, and people your love. You have high standards for yourself, and you’ll do whatever it takes to protect what is most important.
But those “whatever it takes” (compulsions) have taken over your life and somehow actually done the opposite of protecting what’s most important: they’ve drawn you away from it.
What if you could resolve the doubt?
A personalized approach to OCD therapy
1. Listen to your story & set goals
With any kind of therapy, one of the most important factors influencing how effective it will be is the quality of the relationship you have with your therapist. I view our work together as an alliance: one where you and I are working together to help you find and follow your own way.
That means we’ll spend time getting to know one another, discussing your history with OCD and any past treatment, and defining what it is that you want to get out of therapy. We will talk directly about these things from the start, and I will create a safe space for you to give me the feedback I need to tailor your treatment to you.
2. Decide on the right approach
I don’t believe there is one “right” way to treat OCD, which is why I’ve chosen to be trained in multiple different approaches: Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Rumination-Focused ERP (R-ERP), and Inference-Based CBT (I-CBT). Each one has the potential to be life-changing and effective—it depends on what’s best for you.
We will take what you know about yourself, your strengths and struggles, your past experiences and preferences and what I know about OCD and the treatments that help to decide together what approach will be most likely to help you.
3. Monitor progress & make adjustments
Each week, we’ll use evidence-based measures (as well as your individual experiences) to monitor your progress. If what we are doing is working, you should start to feel better pretty quickly, and we’ll know we’re on the right track. If you’re not improving within a few sessions, we can decide whether to make adjustments to what we’re doing based on what we’ve learned.
4. Thrive
We’ll work together for 45-60 minutes each week until you are way less impacted by OCD and way more in control and getting back to your real self. Then we will decrease how frequently we meet until you are confident in maintaining your progress and no longer need therapy.
Going beyond ERP
Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) is a powerful method for treating OCD that involves intentional exposure to obsessive doubts or the things that trigger them, while stopping the compulsions that continue to feed the fears. However, studies have shown that up to 40% of people continue to struggle with OCD even after ERP treatment (and countless more may choose not to even try it due to fear or anxiety of engaging in the exposure exercises).
I believe you deserve to know all of your options.
If ERP is right for you, excellent! I’m highly trained in the method and we’ll put it to work for you. If it’s not, then we’ll take the time to explore what path is best suited to you, your preferences, your history, and your goals.
Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP)
Breaking the cycle of compulsions that maintains OCD
Inference-Based CBT (I-CBT)
Learning to trust yourself & question your doubt
Rumination-Focused ERP (RF-ERP)
Empowering you to control your thoughts again
I can help.
I can help you learn to stay in the reality of the here and now instead of getting sucked into the scary story your OCD is tricking you into believing.
You can become less afraid of the thoughts. You can stop doing the things that are maintaining the OCD. You can break the cycle. You can resolve your doubt and learn how to trust your self again.
You become empowered to make your own choices based on what’s truly important to you, and get back to living your life and choosing to do things that connect you with what you value and love.
OCD Themes
I want you to know that regardless of what themes show up in your OCD—I can help.
From a treatment perspective, the theme does not matter. OCD is OCD.
Common Themes: Contamination, Harm, Postpartum, Pedophilia, Unacceptable/Taboo thoughts, Relationship, Sexual Orientation, Somatic, Staring, Just Right, Perfectionism, Existential, Religious Scrupulosity, Moral Scrupulosity, Responsibility, Real Event or False Memory
No matter what your OCD theme may be, you are not alone. I will meet you wherever you are with compassion, expertise, and support. You can restore trust in your perception, your memory, and even yourself.