OCD Treatment In Portland, OR And Washington State
OCD is a very distressing anxiety disorder that can take on a variety of different forms. A basic explanation for OCD is that people who have OCD typically experience some combination of intrusive ego dystonic thoughts, which means that these intrusive thoughts are not truly what the person thinks, feels, or believes. Often OCD is cleverly able to create intrusive thoughts that are akin to a person’s worst fear. Most people have compulsions, which are physical or mental actions that they do in order to neutralize the intense distress. The rituals are often not logically connected to the intrusive worries and they work to relieve anxiety …for about 5 minutes.
As OCD symptoms increase, the obsessions and rituals grow proportionately to how much you entertain them. The intrusive thoughts and compulsions usually take up a significant amount of time in daily life and progress to causing significant functional impairment.
OCD is tricky in that it can take different forms. There are more straight forward and “typical” forms of intrusive thoughts followed by compulsive rituals. There is also intrusive thoughts with mental or sensorimotor rituals. There is also a form that is sometimes called “Pure O” which is intrusive distressing thoughts without clear rituals. OCD can and usually does evolve over time in an effort to stay in control, and often as we become more aware, OCD symptoms become different and less obvious. This is why treatment focuses on process over content of thoughts.
The good news is, if you know what OCD is and you think you’ve had it before, you have probably already experienced more distress than you will in treatment. Knowledge is power and if you know your enemy, this alone can significantly provide some relief of fear, shame, and guilt. It is a difficult disorder to have but it is very treatable.
Exposure and response prevention (ERP), a sub field of CBT, is the gold standard treatment for OCD. This is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy that teaches people that they can tolerate the distress without engaging in safety behaviors through a gradual and structured exposure process. I incorporate Acceptance and Commitment therapy which allows me to help people identify their core values to create a meaning driven exposure process. I also help people diffuse from their thoughts, and learn to let them pass by without getting hooked in. Exposure treatment may sound distressing, however, we can go as fast or as slow as you feel ready for. We can often start out with reading words or visualization exposures.
Once you gain the ability to tolerate the distress of your thoughts without engaging in a ritual and can do that consistently, you will find that your OCD symptoms have improved significantly and, depending on the specific case, sometimes we can get great treatment results in a fairly short period of time.