Individual therapy

OCD Therapy for Adults

Therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder: the intrusive thoughts, the doubt, the rituals visible and invisible. OCD isn't quirky perfectionism, and your thoughts were never the problem. The loop is, and it's treatable.

50-55 minute sessions ND-affirming ERP & I-CBT 100% online · TX · ME · MT · NH
Is this you?

Your mind keeps asking questions it won't let you answer

You know the thought is irrational. Knowing has never once made it leave. So you check, review, confess, avoid, or quietly argue with your own mind for hours, and the relief lasts just long enough for the next "what if" to arrive. If this sounds familiar:

  • Thoughts you'd never act on, about harm, contamination, morality, or worse, keep arriving uninvited and refusing to leave
  • Checking, washing, ordering, or redoing things eats real hours of your day, even though you know it's already done
  • Your compulsions are invisible: mentally reviewing, counting, praying, replaying conversations, neutralizing one thought with another
  • You've built your life around avoidance: certain knives, certain roads, certain people, certain topics
  • You ask the people you love the same reassurance questions again and again, and hate that you need to
  • You've googled your thoughts at 2am more times than you'd ever admit, looking for proof you're not a monster
Understanding the loop

A false alarm your mind learned to believe

Everyone has intrusive thoughts. In OCD, the mind sounds an alarm about them, and every ritual that quiets the alarm teaches the mind the alarm was right. That's the whole trap, and it runs in predictable stages.

The OCD loop A cycle of five stages connected by arrows in a circle: an intrusive thought arrives, the alarm sounds with doubt and what-ifs, the compulsion follows whether visible or mental, brief relief comes, and the loop tightens because relief teaches the mind the alarm was right, feeding back around. The center is labeled: the loop, not the person. The loop, not the person and around again, unless it's interrupted Intrusive thought uninvited, like everyone has The alarm sounds "what if it's true?" The compulsion checking, reassurance Brief relief the doubt quiets, briefly The loop tightens relief proves the alarm right

The compulsion is the loop's fuel, not its cure. That's the hopeful part: OCD is one of the most treatable conditions there is, because the loop has a known off-ramp.

Who I work with

Every theme, including the ones you're afraid to say

OCD picks whatever you care about most and weaponizes it. No theme is too dark, too strange, or too embarrassing to bring here. I've heard it, and I won't flinch.

Checking & contamination

Locks, stoves, germs, illness: the classic themes. Contamination OCD therapy

Taboo intrusive thoughts

Harm, sexual, religious, and moral themes: the ones people carry in total silence.

Relationship OCD

Endless checking of your feelings, your partner, your certainty. ROCD therapy

Mostly mental OCD

Sometimes called "pure O": rumination, reviewing, and neutralizing nobody can see.

Neurodivergent adults

OCD alongside autism or ADHD, where telling the conditions apart matters for treatment.

What we work on

Four fronts, worked in sequence

OCD treatment has a well-mapped path. We walk it collaboratively, at a pace you agree to, one theme at a time.

Naming the loop out loud

Your themes, your triggers, and every compulsion, including the mental ones you've never called compulsions. Saying it all to someone who doesn't flinch is the first time many people feel the loop loosen.

Facing the doubt, gradually

Exposure and response prevention, done right: collaborative, graded, and always with your consent. You practice letting the alarm ring without answering it, starting small, and the alarm learns to quiet itself.

Retiring the invisible rituals

Reassurance-seeking, mental reviewing, confessing, and googling are compulsions too, and often the stickiest ones. We map them and wind them down, so relief stops feeding the loop.

A life run by values, not fear

Reclaiming what OCD took: the roads not driven, the people avoided, the decisions deferred to doubt. The measure of this work isn't fewer thoughts; it's a bigger life.

How treatment works

A clear, structured plan, built in sequence

This is structured work built around exposure and response prevention (ERP), the leading evidence-based treatment for OCD. By session three you'll know your plan, its phases, and roughly how long the work takes. Sessions are 50-55 minutes.

I'm trained in both ERP and inference-based CBT (I-CBT), a newer evidence-based OCD treatment that works through reasoning rather than exposure. Some people do best with one, some with a blend, and if ERP elsewhere felt like too much, I-CBT offers another route to the same recovery. We choose together. My OCD care is also neurodivergence-affirming: ERP and I-CBT adapted for Autistic and ADHD adults, where sensory needs, routines, and communication differences are part of the plan instead of mistaken for symptoms. Few OCD practices work this way. It matters if you're neurodivergent, and it helps if you're not, because the same flexibility shapes treatment to you instead of a script.

Nothing is sprung on you: every exposure is chosen together, ranked together, and paced by you. ERP is challenging work, but it's challenge you sign up for step by step, never something done to you.

How my methods work →

1

Assessment

Your themes, triggers, and compulsions, visible and mental, without judgment.

2

Your loop map

How your specific loop runs, ranked from easiest to hardest to face.

3

Graded practice

ERP from the bottom of the ladder up, at a pace you set together.

4

Consolidation

Becoming your own therapist, with a real plan for flare-ups.

Format

All sessions online via secure, HIPAA-compliant video. You must be physically located in Texas, Maine, Montana, or New Hampshire at the time of session. Online ERP has a real advantage: exposure practice can happen in the places where your OCD shows up.

Insurance

Visit the services page to see which insurances are accepted, along with current rates and private pay options.

Approach

Trained in both exposure and response prevention (ERP) and inference-based CBT (I-CBT), with specialized experience providing ERP for neurodivergent adults. Full credentials →

Common questions

About OCD therapy

Quick answers. The full FAQ page has the rest.

Some themes have their own pages: contamination OCD, relationship OCD, and perfectionism OCD.

The distress you feel about the thoughts is the tell: OCD latches onto what violates your values most, which is why the themes feel so awful. Intrusive thoughts are something nearly everyone experiences; OCD is what happens when a mind sounds the alarm about them. In therapy, the content of the thought stops being the focus, because the loop, not the thought, is the problem.
It's more collaborative than its reputation. Nothing is forced or sprung on you: we build a ladder together, you choose where to start, and every step is one you've agreed to. Most people are surprised to find the hardest part was the anticipation, and that each rung genuinely gets easier.
Yes. Mental reviewing, silently neutralizing thoughts, replaying events, and reassurance-seeking are compulsions, just invisible ones, and this presentation (sometimes called "pure O") is fully treatable with the same approach. Many people go years undiagnosed because nobody could see their rituals.
By how they feel. Autistic routines and rituals are comfortable, chosen, and regulating; they're never a treatment target here. OCD compulsions are unwanted, fear-driven, and performed to escape doubt. Many autistic adults have both, and separating them carefully means we treat the OCD while leaving your routines, and your autonomy, alone.
Two things. First, I'm trained in both ERP and I-CBT, so treatment isn't one-size-fits-all; we pick the approach, or the blend, that fits how you think. Second, the care is neurodivergence-affirming: I provide ERP and I-CBT adapted for Autistic and ADHD adults, which is hard to find. Standard OCD treatment can misread autistic routines as compulsions or push exposures in ways that ignore sensory limits. Here your neurotype is part of the plan. And if you're not neurodivergent, the same flexibility means treatment built around you rather than a script.
No. Self-identified and questioning adults are welcome, and clarifying what's going on is part of the assessment phase.
I don't prescribe, and therapy doesn't require medication. Some people do OCD treatment with medication and some without; if it's part of your picture or something you're considering, I'll coordinate with your prescriber or help you find one, and the therapy works alongside either choice.

You've been fighting this alone. You don't have to.

The consultation is free and short. We'll talk by phone (I'll call you at the time you schedule) and see if we're a fit. No pressure, no commitment.

Free 15-min consultation