Treat

your OCD

Cali Keating, LCSW-S

Did you know your OCD is treatable?

Exposure Response Prevention for OCD

Do you have repeated intrusive thoughts that you could never tell your friends about? Keep things you don’t need, count, check, skin pick? Avoid, seek reassurance, or distract yourself from situations you feel you can’t handle? If you have OCD, or believe you may have OCD, you may have developed physical or mental compulsions that take hours of your time every week.

OCD tells us we just need to keep doing compulsions, and then we’ll feel better.

Compulsions

I just need to wear gloves and goggles to do the dishes, then I will be ok.

Mental Compulsions

I just need to finish going over every word I said and every gesture I made to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself, then I will be ok.

Body focused repetitive behaviors

I just need to pick one more part of my skin, then I will be ok.

Many of my clients have not had the opportunity to learn how to be ok without compulsions. You may have tried to stop doing compulsions on your own, but often this is not sustainable and does not get rid of other compulsions. I can help you become an expert in how your OCD works so you can have autonomy over your thoughts and actions.

Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) is considered the most effective treatment for OCD

This protocol involves structured exercises in session.

  • We will trigger the desire to do a compulsion, then not do it.

  • Start on easy mode and gradually increase the difficulty.

  • I will teach you skills to help you manage the discomfort of saying no to compulsions.

  • Over time, you will find the discomfort boring, feel unbothered by OCD, and feel confident that you don’t need OCD behaviors.

  • This works for mental compulsions and “pure O” too, which is the form of OCD that has almost no physical compulsions.

From the IOCD website:

You will find that these feelings and thoughts are distressing, but also that they can’t hurt you — they are safe and manageable.

When you stop fighting the obsessions and anxiety, these feelings will eventually begin to subside.

This natural drop in anxiety that happens when you stay “exposed” and “prevent” the compulsive “response” is called habituation.

You will find that your fears are less likely to come true than you thought.

You will get better at managing “everyday” levels of risk and uncertainty.

My approach

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Data-driven

Exposure response prevention (ERP) therapy is considered the gold standard for OCD treatment. If you’ve tried talk therapy for OCD, you may have noticed that you still have OCD! Behavioral therapy is considered the most effective pathway to OCD recovery. You can have a massive decrease in intrusive thoughts, watch intrusive thoughts float away with ease, and stop doing your compulsions. That’s OCD recovery!

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Skills based

ERP comes with a number of skills you can use to manage OCD in your real life. You will be able to accept uncertainty, have self-talk ready to go to disconnect from intrusive thoughts, and feel in charge of your impulse to do compulsions. Skills come from ERP but I also pull from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), mindfulness practices, and self-compassion.

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Ready for real life

The experience of OCD over the life span can be confusing and scary. You may notice that your past symptoms no longer bother you, but you have new fears and new compulsions that keep coming. When you have the owner’s manual for your OCD, you will begin to see every intrusive thought and every impulse to do compulsions as the same. You’ll feel confident that OCD thoughts and urges are simply irrelevant, even if the content is weird or disturbing.

About Cali

I worked in the US as a mental health therapist for 8 years prior to moving abroad. In addition to my ERP training, I’m also certified in somatic parts work, a certified clinical service provider for ADHD, and autism informed and educated. My specialization is in OCD and body focused repetitive behaviors for complex, multi-diagnosis cases. I work with OCD combined with depression, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, ADHD, autism, and eating disorders. I’m well-versed in all subtypes of OCD including relationship OCD, sexuality OCD, POCD, existential OCD, morality OCD, just right OCD, contamination OCD, pure O OCD, and real event OCD. If you have a trauma you haven’t talked about and your OCD is using it to ruin your life, you have come to the right person. Nothing is too weird for OCD and nothing is too weird for me as your OCD therapist. We can discuss it all in a non-judgmental and confidential space.

OCD therapy available in person in Barcelona, and online via Zoom.

Let’s chat!

I offer a 20 minute phone consultation free of charge. Fill out the form below and we can schedule a call.