OCD Advice written by the now college-aged child of our parent trainer and dedicated OCD advocate.

Polyvagal Theory is based on the recognition that our autonomic nervous systems are a key factor in determining how we respond to stress and trauma. By understanding how polyvagal theory applies to OCD work, clinicians can help their clients better manage experiences of distress and more effectively address persistent symptoms.

Our food and drink choices can have a tremendous impact on the efficacy of our anxiety treatment. Research shows that diet balance and gut health is associated with lower anxiety and depression, as well as reduced symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

While it is ideal to work with a dedicated therapist for your OCD and Anxiety treatment, some people need to begin or continue the process outside of formal therapy.  Fortunately, the design of an exposure can be a learned skill. The first step is to isolate a trigger, and the compulsions that you wish to target. 

When working with clients on negative self-talk, it has been helpful to externalize and name the different modes of negative dialogue that invade our brains.  I like to think of them as characters in a play, with distinct themes and personalities.  The first rule to deprogramming our negative self-talk is: Name it to Tame it.  We label the self-talk as The Worrywart, The Perfectionist, The Victim, or The Disparager.  

Many professionals misdiagnose Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) as GAD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and treat it accordingly.  Unfortunately, these two disorders may need drastically different treatment plans and countless clients find themselves stymied in unproductive treatment cycles. 

Most cases of treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder(OCD) ebb and flow with progress, but occasionally, we are met with significant resistance. Although we hope to externalize OCD as a separate voice from one’s true self, OCD often can be deeply entrenched in our personalities.  Sometimes, we cannot imagine who we are without our OCD behaviors and we lean on this predictable mode of reacting to the world.  The temporarily easier path is to stay in your OCD.  

While the term “accommodations” has generally been positive for the neurodiverse community, in the realm of OCD, it is a problematic family behavior that exacerbates symptoms. By accommodating the child’s desires, a family is essentially enabling the OCD or anxiety to flourish.

Exposure Response Prevention, the gold star treatment for OCD, can be a challenging process of facing our fears, experiencing our triggers, and resisting our compulsions. The key for successful exposure response prevention is client buy-in. The individual with OCD has to want to get better, just as much as their family members and their therapist.

For those of us with OCD, the New Year can be a fraught time. This yearly reckoning with progress-made and progress-desired can feel very heavy for those of us who are in constant recovery from our cycles of obsessions and compulsions. We lose so much time to our OCD, and often get derailed from our true values.

Successful OCD treatment is in the hands of the client. Although finding the right clinic is critical, no matter how skilled the clinician is, the client is ultimately in the driver’s seat. Here are my top five steps to a successful beginning to your OCD treatment.

Skin-picking is a close cousin of OCD, and falls into the category of Body Based Repetitive Behaviors. As with all physical compulsions, the key is to provoke the desire to pick and repeat the common situations where picking occurs, but then delay or resist the completion of the act.

While many people find comfort in the cleansing experience of a shower, for those of us with OCD, it is a common area to be gripped with compulsions.

Most cases of OCD treatment ebb and flow with progress, but occasionally, we are met with significant resistance. Although we hope to externalize OCD as a separate voice from one’s true self, OCD often can be deeply entrenched in our personalities. Sometimes, we cannot imagine who we are without our OCD behaviors and we lean on this predictable mode of reacting to the world. The temporarily easier path is to stay in your OCD.

As a holistic OCD clinic, we are constantly examining the ways in which we can provide more comprehensive services to heal both clients and their family systems. When we utilize the intervention of Exposure Response Prevention, we are leaning into a very different type of therapy. Rather than soothing our clients, we are purposefully moving towards their fears.

This time of year we see a tremendous uptick in stress reactions among our clients. Many find that returning to their hometowns and families to celebrate the holidays can bring up a lot of unwanted compulsions, worry cycles, and interpersonal conflict. Anxiety and OCD are both cyclical disorders, which are prone to flare ups. Here are my top four strategies for managing this time of year if you or your loved one is dealing with an anxiety disorder.

As an OCD therapist, I would never ask my clients to do an exposure that I would not do myself. In fact, I often prove that this is not an empty promise and do the exposure alongside my client. ERP must be a collaboration.

As an OCD and Anxiety specialist, I am always assessing what could hold back my clients from getting better. If both therapist and client openly discuss these three common pitfalls to OCD treatment, we are likely to make a lot more progress. Like with all things, self-awareness, communication, and a good sense of humor help make these sticking points smoother.

For an OCD voice, everything is catastrophic, incredibly important, urgent, and definitely not funny. However, when we can step back and laugh at some of the requirements that our OCD places on us, we can truly see the absurdity in its rules!  Laughing at our OCD makes it smaller and weaker.

Emetophobia is a common condition that is characterized by chronic fear of vomiting.  People with this disorder will enact a wide array of compulsions and avoidance mechanisms around food, motion, germs, or pregnancy.  Emetophobia is a subtype of Specific Phobias, but is also commonly associated with OCD.