Individual Therapy

I provide Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for OCD and anxiety disorders. These are evidence-based treatments, which means they have scientific evidence supporting their effectiveness.

A typical session is 50 minutes and I generally meet with clients once weekly, although I also offer more intensive individual treatment for patients who are looking to make improvements in a shorter time frame or for clients whose symptoms warrant more frequent treatment. In my experience, meeting weekly is the necessary “dose” for improvement in therapy. Meeting less frequently tends to keep people in a maintenance mode where symptoms don’t improve much. Once we start to reach treatment goals, we’ll begin to taper and move to less frequent sessions.

During your first session, we’ll go over paperwork and review my practice policies. We’ll start our work with an initial data gathering session where I’ll ask you specific questions about what brings you into treatment now. I’ll ask you questions about the types of thoughts you’ve been having, what situations trigger your anxiety, and how you respond. This can be really difficult, and you might worry about sharing these thoughts and behaviors with someone. I’ve worked with OCD for over 10 years and I promise there are no thoughts that will shock or surprise me. I’ve worked with OCD themes related to contamination, sexual orientation, causing harm to others, pedophilia, sin and morality, violence, perfectionism, and “not just right experiences” (NJREs) among others. I provide a safe, non-judgmental space to discuss these thoughts openly.

I’ll also ask you questions about your background and history. While the focus of treatment will be on what you can do now to manage your anxiety and OCD, it’s also important to understand the context of your experience (e.g., cultural, familial, medical, etc.).

The first session is a chance for us to get to know each other a bit more and make sure we’re a good fit. If at the end of the session I feel that what you’re describing would be a better fit for a different kind of therapy or a different approach than what I offer, I will share that with you and give you some referrals for experts in that area.

Once we’ve completed your initial assessment, I will create a treatment plan specifically tailored to what’s bothering you. We’ll discuss it together and make any changes needed. Treatment plans are designed to help you learn new strategies for dealing with OCD and anxiety, with specific goals for each session. Sessions with me are a balance of structure and flexibility. The structure helps you learn, apply, and review new skills; the flexibility gives us space to address stressors from the week or other concerns you might have. At the end of each session we discuss together what makes sense for homework for that week and how we’ll keep track of progress.

Treatment for OCD and anxiety includes practicing facing your fears with willingness and courage. We will create a “menu” of challenges to practice. We will practice moving from easier to more difficult challenges and we will also practice challenges you are most motivated to tackle. You will start to gain confidence with each challenge faced. This is when you’ll be able to do things you’ve been afraid of doing and your world will really start to open up. You’ll be able to stop tiptoeing through your life, afraid something will trigger your OCD and anxiety, and do the things that matter to you. You’ll know you can handle whatever shows up.

Finally, we’ll work on a relapse prevention plan. This plan will help you recognize factors that might make you vulnerable to OCD and anxiety in the future, early warning signs of a relapse, and action steps to take to prevent another episode.