OCD Treatment San Diego, CA
Has OCD Taken Over Your Life?
Do intrusive and obsessive thoughts clog your mind and deprive you of relaxation? Are you engaging in compulsive behaviors that drain away time you’d rather be spending doing the things you enjoy? Have you previously sought therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) but been disappointed with the results?
Perhaps you’ve become used to a continuous barrage of upsetting or disturbing thoughts that make you anxious and fill you with a sense of dread. Although you wish you had some control over them, when these thoughts and worries pop up, it may feel like they hijack your brain.
To help ease your anxiety, you may spend excessive time completing rituals, such as repeating certain body movements, touching or tapping objects in a specific way, or repetitive hand-washing. Until the anxious thoughts dissipate, you might get stuck performing these rituals over and over again.
Fears and worries surrounding certain places and activities may cause you to avoid them altogether. As you continue to retreat from engaging in daily life, perhaps you realize how much your OCD has caused you to self-isolate, impacting your relationships and quality of life.
You May Have Tried Therapy Without Success
If you’ve been struggling with OCD for a long time, perhaps you’ve already tried getting help. However, not all therapists specialize in OCD treatment or have the expertise necessary to help you manage your symptoms.
Fortunately, there are now evidence-based treatments proven effective in the management of OCD. With your OCD in check, you can spend less time completing rituals and obsessing and more time accomplishing your life goals.
OCD Is A More Common Disorder Than You May Think
Despite it being a relatively common mental disorder—the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) currently estimates 2.3 percent of adults will experience OCD in their lives— the research surrounding OCD hasn’t shed much light on how or why people suffer from it. Although research suggests that it may run in families, it remains unclear whether this may be related to genetic predisposition, learned behavior passed on from caregiver to child or a mixture of both.
For those of us who have found therapy to be unhelpful, we commonly conclude that we must have “treatment-resistant OCD”. However, this is rarely the case—rather, it’s because there are only a few specialized modalities that can successfully treat OCD and not all therapists are trained in them.
Shame And Embarrassment May Keep Us From Seeking Help
Sometimes OCD causes graphic thoughts and compulsions that we’re too embarrassed to talk to anyone else about. Sadly, those of us who have never sought out help may have resisted it due to shame, embarrassment, and the idea that we are “crazy” to have these thoughts in our heads. Rather than risking judgment, we prefer to suffer in silence and let the torture continue. However, we’re not alone. Now more than ever, therapy can be a helpful option.
The good news is that in recent years there have been breakthroughs in treating OCD. Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) in particular has been shown effective in reducing the symptoms of OCD. You may have given up hope that therapy will work, but giving it another chance could be the first step in discovering what life could look like without the debilitating symptoms of OCD.
OCD Therapy Provides You With Proven Strategies To Manage Symptoms
For years you might have tried to resist compulsive urges or push intrusive thoughts out of your mind, to no avail. Without a clear strategy that will help you resist engaging in your compulsions, you may feel like you’re at their mercy. OCD therapy offers you a lifeline that can help you finally gain control over the thoughts that have kept you stuck in a cycle of fear, worry, and compulsive behavior.
Therapy allows you a safe place to talk about your OCD openly without fear of judgment. Your therapist is an expert in treating OCD who will never make you feel ashamed or embarrassed about the amount of time you’re spending completing rituals or the disturbing thoughts you might have. With validation and compassion, our clinicians will offer you tangible skills that can diminish intrusive thoughts and reduce compulsive behavior.
What To Expect In OCD Treatment Sessions
We will begin by getting a picture of what your OCD symptoms look like and gauging how much they impact your daily routine. Once identified, we will fine-tune a strategy that will help you reduce OCD symptoms. By the end of treatment, we aim to have taught you effective ways to manage your urges on your own so that your OCD is no longer in charge.
Ongoing sessions will be dedicated to teaching you effective coping skills for whatever triggers you. The focus will be on confidence-building. We will start with easier behaviors and compulsions as we slowly work toward more challenging situations. As you gain confidence that you can control unwelcome thoughts and compulsions, we will begin to face your underlying fears.
Confronting fears in a controlled environment is an important part of the process. It demonstrates that the worst-case scenarios that you expect to happen usually never happen and, if they do, you can handle the outcome.
Exposure And Response Therapy (ERP) Can Help Treat OCD
We utilize Exposure Response and Prevention (ERP) for OCD treatment, a type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that has been proven effective in treating OCD. ERP is a process that teaches you how to resist compulsions, reduce avoidance of situations that cause fear, and respond differently to disturbing thoughts so they don’t keep returning. By accepting what your obsessions are, you can work to diminish the compulsions associated with them.
Once you complete successful ERP treatment, you will have control over OCD rather than it having control over you. With dedication and a willingness on your part to overcome OCD once and for all, you can move your life in a new direction.
But You May Wonder Whether OCD Therapy Is Right For You…
ERP sounds like a lot of work—It’s intimidating to think about having to stop doing the things that make me feel more comfortable.
Although ERP does take some work, stepping out of your comfort zone will be worth the effort. To ensure success, in OCD counseling we will set a pace that you can tolerate, understanding that pushing you to move too fast may be detrimental. While our goal will be for you to make progress and be challenged, it won’t be at the expense of feeling scared or uncomfortable.
I’ve gone to therapy for OCD before but it didn’t help me very much. How will OCD treatment with you be different?
Understandably, it can be frustrating to attend OCD counseling with the hope of feeling better only to be disappointed that your therapist wasn’t able to help you. However, if you only engaged in talk therapy, chances are it wasn’t effective. We are experts in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), which is research-based and has the strongest evidence as an effective treatment for OCD. And even if you tried ERP before without success, our counselors have a significant amount of experience with OCD treatment, working with clients from childhood age and up.
I’m afraid to give up some of my habits. They’re what keep me from getting sick, doing a bad job at work, and making mistakes.
A common fear people with OCD have is that if they let go of their ingrained habits and behaviors, life will fall apart. Obsessive-compulsive disorder therapy will help you differentiate between behaviors that are excessive and problematic—such as unnecessary hand-washing— and behaviors that are helpful and keep you healthy and successful—like eating well and staying organized. Once the distinction between healthy and unhealthy behaviors is made, we will help you reduce those that are excessive and problematic.
Talk with an OCD Therapist in San Diego
Life opens up when you can spend time doing what you want to do rather than being controlled by compulsions. If you would like to find out more about OCD treatment in San Diego with us, and would like a free consultation, you may call 858-461-9409 or visit our contact page.