OCD Therapy Knoxville | ERP
Break the cycle of intrusive thoughts, anxiety, and compulsions
You know and understand that the thoughts don’t always make sense, or at least part of you does.
Therapy for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for teens and adults experiencing intrusive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, and feelings of overwhelm. Using evidence-based approaches including Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), therapy can help you change your response to obsessive thoughts and gradually step away from the cycle that OCD creates.
The goal is not to achieve absolute certainty or control, but rather learn how to change the way you interact with intrusive thoughts.
What is OCD?
Obsessive compulsive disorder is often misunderstood. It is not simply being organized, particular, or liking things a certain way. OCD involves a cycle of obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.
Obsessions are unwanted and intrusive thoughts, images, sensations, doubts, or urges that create significant anxiety or discomfort. Compulsions are behaviors or mental actions that are used to reduce that discomfort, prevent a feared outcome, or create a sense of certainty or control. The cycle can often look something like
Intrusive thought —> Anxiety/fear —> Compulsive Behavior —> Temporary Relief —> Increased Doubt/ Obsessiveness
The relief provided by the compulsion can reinforce the cycle. Your brain interprets the intrusive thought as important and that completing the compulsion helped to keep you safe. Over time, OCD can demand more reassurance, checking, avoidance, analysis, or even rituals to achieve the same feeling of relief.
Exposure + Response Prevention (ERP) work to break this cycle.
Do I Have OCD?
OCD can present in many different ways including:
Intrusive/ unwanted thoughts
Repetitive checking
Excessive reassurance seeking
Fears of making the wrong decision
Contamination fears
Excessive washing or cleaning
Safety-related fears
Repeatedly checking locks, appliances, messages, or other items
Religious or moral fears
Mental rituals or repetitive phrases
Counting or repeating behaviors
Avoidance of people, places, objects, or situations that trigger intrusive thoughts,
Confessing thoughts or past actions to obtain reassurance from others
Some compulsions happen entirely inside of your mind and can look like rumination or “mental gymnastics”. You may repeatedly analyze an event, check your memory, argue with an intrusive thought, review your intentions, or prove to yourself that your fear isn’t real. Because these compulsions aren’t visible to others, OCD can go unrecognized for years.
What does ERP Therapy Look Like?
Exposure and Response Prevention is not opening you up to your biggest fear and expecting you to deal with it. ERP is collaborative and can be slow-paced. We will identify your obsessions, compulsions, avoidance patterns, reassurance seeking behaviors, and other ways that OCD may be influencing your life. From there, we can develop a “ladder” or hierarchy of exposures that are appropriate to your symptoms and treatment goals. ERP is designed to be gradual, intentional, and individualized. The goal is not to make you feel anxious for the sake of feeling anxious, but rather to help you discover that anxiety, uncertainty, and intrusive thoughts can exist without you having to control what comes next.
What Can You Expect From OCD Therapy?
The first sessions will focus on understanding OCD symptoms and how they may be affecting your daily life. We will identify patterns of obsessions and compulsions, reassurance seeking, rituals, avoidance and other behaviors that reinforce the anxiety cycle.
Treatment may include:
Psychoeducation about OCD and the anxiety cycle
Identifying obsessions and compulsions
Exposure and Response Prevention
Increasing tolerance for uncertainty
Mindfulness and cognitive defusion
Distress tolerance techniques and “urge surfing” skills
Values-based behavioral changes
Practicing new responses between sessions
Ready to Get Started?
Request a therapy appointment or schedule a 15 minute consultation to determine whether we would be a good fit!