Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Do You Struggle with Unwanted, Intrusive Thoughts?
Have you spent countless hours trying to get rid of your thoughts or find a way to make yourself feel better?
Do your unwanted thoughts seem to go against your core values and lead you to feel overwhelmed by fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, disgust, or extreme discomfort?
Are you depleted and exhausted at the end of the day, due to the mental energy it takes to live with OCD?
Have you found yourself avoiding relationships, activities, or hobbies due to the fear or discomfort you feel?
Living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can feel like you are trapped in your own personal nightmare. You have probably found ways to gain temporary solace and relief, only to experience more exhaustion and a sense of defeat when your intrusive thoughts inevitably return.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) does not play fair. It’s like an enemy who knows you best.
OCD preys off of the values and attributes you care the most about. When not in a state of panic, your logical mind understands that your intrusive thoughts are irrational and probably nothing to worry about after all. Unfortunately, this does nothing to stop the intense emotional discomfort and fear you experience when your OCD is triggered, and before you know it, your ability to engage in rational thinking is supplanted by your anxiety. This disconnect between our logical minds and our fear minds is exactly why OCD is considered one of the most insidious of the anxiety disorders and can feel incredibly off-putting.
OCD is never satiated. It tricks you by suggesting that all you need to do is wash, check, or ruminate “one more time.” As soon as you feel a rush of motivation to fight back against OCD, your intrusive thoughts will shut you down, reminding you that this could be the one time something bad actually does happen.
All you want is to get your mind back and experience long-term comfort and peace that you may have not known in years. You want to experience what its like to have better control over your mind and body without having to listen to your OCD’s input. You want somebody who really gets how painful OCD is and can give you actionable steps to feel better. We can help you with this.
Your mind isn’t broken. It’s doing it’s job too well.
Anxiety disorders are incredibly common, with about 30% of American's experiencing a clinically significant anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. Like all forms of anxiety, OCD doesn’t mean that your brain is broken or you are going crazy. OCD means that your mind’s alarm system, otherwise known as the “flight vs fight” center, is acting in an over-protective manner. With OCD, your mind is sending a “danger signal” in response to a specific set of thoughts (your specific OCD themes).
It Is Human to Have Intrusive Thoughts
The human brain is meaning making machine that is programmed to generate thoughts; some of which are pleasant, most of which are neutral, and some of which are incredibly unpleasant. With OCD, your brain is wired to create a strong flight vs fight reaction in response to specific thoughts. You can think about this like a brain misfire or a misguided attempt to protect you from danger. In doing this, your brain initiates the release all sorts of anxiety inducing chemicals that make you feel like something bad is going to happen, when physically you are safe.
OCD’s job is to convince you that something bad will happen. It takes advantage of your brain’s hardwired instincts to survive. Because of this, you feel strong urges to keep yourself safe by avoiding situations that trigger discomfort, trying to endlessly “figure out” or interpret your thoughts to gain certainty, or engaging in ritualistic behavior until things feel safe or just right. While these coping behaviors offer temporary relief, they also inadvertently fuel the vicious OCD cycle.
The good news it that by working with a true OCD specialist, you and your therapist will discover the various ways your OCD has been keeping you trapped. Once you know how your OCD works, you will learn how to re-wire your mind by becoming clear on the tricks OCD uses to bully you around. You will learn how to stand up to your OCD and take power back in order to live the rich, fulfilling life that you’ve always wanted.
OCD Therapy Can Help You Experience Long Term Peace and Comfort
You no longer have to face your unwanted, intrusive thoughts all by yourself. At Beachfront Anxiety Specialists, we have devoted our professional careers to helping our clients overcome OCD in order to reclaim their lives. We are true specialists who use cutting-edge psychologically validated interventions to help our clients attain the long-lasting relief they are seeking.
We combine our extensive experience treating OCD with a warm, compassionate, and collaborative approach. Whether this is the first time you have sought help for OCD or you have been to therapy in the past, OCD-focused treatment can help you get your life back on track by reducing symptoms and empowering you to make the changes you’ve been looking for.
What to Expect in Sessions With Us
In our sessions, you and your therapist will work closely together to uncover the various ways your OCD and anxiety are keeping you stuck. OCD symptoms can manifest in subtle and nuanced ways, and our therapists are highly skilled at conducting thorough assessments to ensure you are receiving high quality and comprehensive treatment. Over the course of the first several sessions, you and your therapist will be getting to know each other, assessing your symptoms and background, and learning about the nature of OCD.
Once we have a solid understanding of how your specific OCD symptoms are presenting, we will work closely with you to develop a treatment plan that tailors high quality, science-based interventions to your specific goals, values, and background. The gold-standard treatment for OCD is exposure and response prevention, or “ERP” for short. Not only does ERP have decades of research showing it’s the most effective approach for OCD, but in our experience clients tend to report rapid and long-lasting change. In ERP, we will work with you to “cut off” the oxygen supply of OCD by learning how to limit compulsions. We will also develop a targeted and strategic plan for you to gently face your fears and take actionable steps to getting your life back. When we start chipping away at your OCD fears, you will feel more empowered than have you in years. As you begin attaining wins over your OCD, you won’t be able to help but watch as your intrusive thoughts begin to fade into the background.
Customizing Therapy Techniques For Your Needs
At Beachfront Anxiety Specialists, we never take a cookie cutter approach to your treatment. We view our roles as active collaborators and coaches as much as we are therapists. Our job is to help you feel empowered to take down your OCD by providing tools, insights, and gentle guidance. You are always in the driver’s seat of your treatment, determining where we go and how fast you’d like to get there.
While ERP is an essential ingredient in freeing yourself from OCD, our therapists are also highly trained in several other evidence-based modalities to help you meet your goals. We are able to weave in mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Cognitive Therapy for OCD. These approaches are powerful supplements to ERP by helping you connect with closely held values, changing your relationship with your negative thoughts and painful feelings, and learning how to ground yourself in the present moment when you are spiraling into the past or the future. Applying these other tools can make the process of facing your fears much less daunting.
You May Still Have Questions About OCD Therapy…
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OCD therapy is an investment in your long-term sense of self and peace of mind. The goal of OCD therapy is to help you develop mastery over your OCD, empowering you to become your own OCD therapist. Unlike traditional forms of talk therapy, OCD treatment is active, collaborative, and goal-driven. Typical courses of treatment usually last between 12-25 sessions, although this can vary from client to client.
Our fees reflect the depth of our training and clinical expertise and allow our therapists to maintain smaller case loads so we can devote more attention to each of our clients. While we are not in-network with any insurance company, we do offer superbills which you can submit to your insurance company for out-of-network benefits.
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We work closely with our clients to help them gently face their fears one step at a time. An exposure exercise should never feel overwhelming or too scary, and you are always in charge of the process. We work to strategically face down OCD in bight sized pieces, where you will feel empowered by developing wins under your belt as you chip away at the hold your OCD has over you. We also teach powerful skills that will help you navigate internal discomfort with ease. These are tools that you will be able to take with you and use for the rest of your life.
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Traditional talk therapy is typically non-directive and non-structured. People bring up problems and struggles into therapy, where they feel heard and validated. While this tends to help people feel better in the short term, traditional talk therapy can actually make OCD worse by inadvertently feeding into rumination and OCD compulsions. At Beachfront Anxiety Specialists, not only will you feel truly heard and understood, but you will learn and practice actionable skills that you can begin applying immediately.
You Can Attain Relief from Intrusive Thoughts
If you would like to schedule an appointment or discuss any questions you may have regarding OCD therapy, contact us below. We try to get back to all voicemails and emails within 24 hours. Before starting therapy, we always offer free 20 minute phone consultations to make sure we’re a good fit to work together.