OCD Therapy
Specialized Treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Living with OCD can feel exhausting. Intrusive thoughts, uncertainty, and compulsive behaviors can take up hours of your day and leave you feeling stuck in a cycle that's difficult to break.
At Anxiety & OCD Behavioral Health Center, we provide evidence-based therapy for children, teens, and adults with OCD. Using treatments supported by decades of research—including Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP)—we help patients learn new ways to respond to intrusive thoughts and gradually reduce the behaviors that keep OCD going.
Whether your OCD is mild or significantly affecting daily life, treatment is individualized to your symptoms, goals, and stage of life.
What is OCD?
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition characterized by unwanted, intrusive thoughts, images, or urges (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors or mental rituals (compulsions) performed to reduce anxiety or prevent something bad from happening.
While compulsions may provide temporary relief, they strengthen the OCD cycle over time, making symptoms more persistent.
OCD is not simply being organized, neat, or perfectionistic. It is a treatable condition that can significantly impact work, school, relationships, and daily life.
Intrusive Thoughts
Unwanted, intrusive thoughts, images, or urges that cause distress and can become difficult to dismiss or move past.
Checking
Repeatedly checking things—such as locks, appliances, messages, or past actions—to reduce doubt or prevent something bad from happening.
Common Signs of OCD
Reassurance Seeking
Frequently asking others for confirmation that everything is okay, you haven't done something wrong, or a feared outcome won't happen.
“Just Right” Feelings
Feeling driven to repeat or adjust something until it feels complete, correct, even, or “just right”—even when there isn't a specific feared outcome.
Avoidance
Avoiding people, places, objects, thoughts, or situations that trigger intrusive thoughts or uncomfortable uncertainty.
Mental Rituals
Compulsions that happen internally, such as reviewing memories, repeating words or phrases, counting, praying, or trying to “figure out” a thought.
OCD Can Look Different for Everyone
OCD doesn't always look the way it's portrayed in movies or on television. While some people experience visible compulsions like checking or washing, others experience mental rituals or avoidance that may be difficult for others to recognize.
Common OCD themes include:
Contamination
Harm
Health
Relationship OCD (ROCD)
Religious or Moral OCD (Scrupulosity)
Sexual Orientation or Identity OCD
Existential OCD
"Just Right" OCD
Your treatment is based on how OCD affects your life, not simply the theme of your intrusive thoughts.
Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) is considered the gold-standard psychological treatment for OCD.
ERP helps people gradually face situations, thoughts, or feelings that trigger OCD while learning to resist compulsions and other behaviors that provide temporary relief. Over time, ERP helps people build greater tolerance for anxiety and uncertainty while learning that they don't need to rely on compulsions or rituals for relief.
Depending on your needs, treatment may also incorporate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), and parent-based interventions for children and adolescents.
Learn more about Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP).
How OCD Is Treated
Effective Treatment for OCD Is Available
OCD can take up significant time and energy and interfere with school, work, relationships, and everyday life. With specialized, evidence-based OCD treatment, it’s possible to change the patterns that keep OCD going and spend less time responding to intrusive thoughts and compulsions.
Our clinicians provide individualized OCD therapy for children, teens, and adults, with treatment designed around each person’s symptoms, goals, and needs.