Just because you have anxiety does not mean you have OCD. OCD is simply under the Anxiety disorder umbrella. It is treated very similarly. To explain, for OCD, a client might have something they obsess about: for example checking or germs. This obsession comes into their mind and they are forced to do the compulsion to settle their anxiety. With anxiety, the fear or worry comes into the mind, however a compulsion does not bring the anxiety down. Instead it just rattles around in your head, and does not leave.

The treatment is similar: With OCD, you let the obsession come into the mind (Exposure), then the compulsion is stopped (Response Prevention). This lets the body naturally return to the baseline, as seen in green, instead of a repetitive cycle, as seen in red. Both OCD and Anxiety patients are trapped in a never ending cycle of anxiety that goes up and comes down some. They never return to their baseline. With ERP, an OCD client's anxiety will go up even higher, however it will eventually (because it is exhausting) return to baseline. With anxiety, a client can approach the anxiety and do the task (procrastination or public speaking) or before they do the task, they sit with that feeling of high anxiety until they are ready to attempt the task (Exposure).

My job is to be your support through the feelings and tasks so you feel safe and unjudged.