OCD Therapy
Are you living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?
Do you find your mind constantly circulating the same repetitive thoughts?
Are your daily rituals/compulsions getting out of control?
Do you find that your life is limited by the things that you fear?
Do you wish that you could turn off the negative self-talk tapes that play and replay in your head?
Living with OCD can feel isolating, but you are not alone!
OCD presents as recurrent and intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that are paired with ritualized behaviors or mental compulsions. OCD is chronic, genetic, and often begins in early adolescence.
Most people with mild OCD are misdiagnosed by therapists and other clinicians. Once detected, clients with OCD notice that their symptoms center around one or more of the four themes of OCD:
Contamination
Moral scrupulosity
Harm
Order/symmetry.
Contamination is the most well-known OCD type in pop culture, but represents only a fraction of the OCD population.
Contamination may present as fearing germs on surfaces, hands, or air. Many with contamination have the obsessive thought that substances in the environment will get them sick. Contamination fears are also common around semen, with the core fear being of getting pregnant or getting an STD. People usually perform ritualized cleaning/sanitizing compulsions to neutralize this fear.
Some with contamination experience magical thinking, wherein the fear becomes that the substance is resistant to all sanitizing. OCD sufferers may create safe “zones” where certain items or people are not allowed to enter.
Others may suffer from the idea of “moral contamination” where someone’s bad character or behaviors could somehow infect them, and therefore engage in compulsive avoidance of certain people.
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“A Therapist’s OCD Journey: From Paralyzing Fears to Building an OCD Center”
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Moral scrupulosity OCD presents as an obsession with being a good person, being universally kind, or always following the rules.
Moral scrupulosity goes beyond simple ethical behavior. Those who experience it are constantly questioning whether or not they are good enough and get stuck with overthinking any missteps. Those with the religious presentation of moral scrupulosity may face the constant fear that they are not faithful enough or are offending God.
This form of OCD usually involves many compulsions around kindness such as over-apologizing, over-generosity, and repeated checking with loved ones for reassurance that they are behaving well.
Harm OCD is a fear that harm or death will befall ourselves or our loved ones, and/or that we will be the cause of this harm.
Harm OCD is usually accompanied by intrusive thoughts – sudden words or images that often horrify the person with OCD. People may experience intrusive thoughts about running over a pedestrian with their carl, sexually assaulting a minor, or stabbing their loved one.
This form of OCD is considered by many to be the most painful, because sufferers cannot control these intrusive thoughts and they represent the polar opposite of the person’s morality. People who suffer from harm OCD do not actually want to harm anyone. In fact, the opposite is true. They care so deeply about others that their brain is using the idea of harm to stoke fear.
Order/Symmetry OCD can lead a person to touch or tap, count, rearrange, or change something until it is “just right.”
Order/Symmetry OCD is usually not as torturous a presentation of OCD, but it can be incredibly time consuming. While sometimes beginning as positive, the fastidiousness and constant correcting of Order/Symmetry OCD can also create significant paralysis in everyday life. For example, a client may be constantly late for work because the house must be left “just right” and their OCD does not give them any clear end point for this rightness.
In all forms of OCD, a person cannot control these thoughts or the related behaviors.
People can usually see that what they are doing is excessive (at least 1 hour a day on these thoughts or behaviors is the rule of thumb for diagnosis of OCD). However, this self-awareness rarely leads to self-control without treatment.
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Do you have questions about OCD Therapy? Contact us using the form below and we’d be happy to help.
How can we heal from OCD?
The good news is that there are two highly effective therapy treatments for OCD: Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Kairos Wellness Collective also offers ancillary treatments such as acupuncture, massage, yoga, and EMDR to support a client’s nervous system while going through these challenging therapy treatments.
OCD is very responsive to the right treatment by an experienced clinician. At Kairos Wellness Collective, OCD is our priority and we have built our center around OCD expertise and holistic wisdom. Our team creates a custom plan for every client that might be as simple as 12 sessions of therapy, or might involve multiple practitioners working together to treat the same issue with distinct but complementary approaches.