Obsessive-compulsive disorder involves recurring unwanted thoughts, images, or urges, along with repetitive behaviors or mental acts performed to reduce the anxiety those obsessions create. The National Institute of Mental Health notes that people with OCD generally recognize their obsessions as excessive, which does not reduce the distress at all.
The International OCD Foundation emphasizes that the content of an obsession is not a reflection of a person’s character or desires, which is the single most important thing for someone new to this diagnosis to understand.
Trauma work moves at a pace your nervous system can tolerate. Stability comes before processing, because asking someone to revisit the worst years of their life before they have the footing to withstand it does harm rather than good.
Trauma therapy forms the backbone of care. EMDR is frequently used to process traumatic memory without requiring you to narrate every detail aloud, and internal family systems therapy offers a way to work with the protective parts of yourself that formed for good reason and have not yet been told they can stand down. Dialectical behavior therapy builds the regulation skills that make the rest of the work survivable.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is central to how we treat OCD. It works on the relationship between the obsession and the compulsion, and on the beliefs that keep the cycle running. The work is uncomfortable at times, and it is done at a pace you and your clinician set together.
Individual therapy addresses the shame that so often surrounds this diagnosis, and group therapy reduces the isolation. Medication management is available where clinically appropriate.
Substances can become a way to quiet intrusive thoughts or tolerate the anxiety between compulsions, and the relief is brief. Our post on OCD and addiction examines that relationship.
SAMHSA supports integrated treatment when both conditions are present, and our dual diagnosis program is built to deliver it.
No. The distress they cause is precisely because they conflict with your values. That is characteristic of OCD.
Yes, this is a recognized presentation and it is treatable as OCD.
Yes. We admit and treat clients whose primary concern is mental health.
Not always. Therapy alone helps many people, and medication is discussed with your prescriber.
Effective treatment does involve talking about them, at a pace you control, with clinicians who will not react with alarm.
OCD responds to the right treatment. The loop can be interrupted, and the hours it takes can be given back.
We offer LGBTQ+ affirming mental health care in Los Angeles and Chicago.
