Find Life Beyond Your OCD
We’ve all been there from time to time. Perhaps we double-check our locks or call our friends and family to ensure they are safe and healthy. We may even re-play a conversation in our head to see how it could have gone better. However, for people with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), these actions and thoughts can become compulsions and/or obsessions that interfere with their mental health, quality of life, relationships, and health.
If you or a loved one struggles with the effects of OCD, you don’t have to face this battle alone. With the right tools and solutions, you can develop strong coping skills to conquer your OCD – free of excess anxiety, panic, worry, and fear. At The Juniper Center, our mental health professionals are here to help you through difficult and challenging times.
What is OCD?
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health disorder that impacts people of all walks of life and all ages. OCD occurs when an individual gets caught in a pattern of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwanted, interfering thoughts, feelings, urges, or images that trigger recurring distressing feelings. Compulsions are behaviors an individual engages in to attempt to overpower their obsessions to decrease their levels of distress. Even when these thoughts or behaviors seem irrational or unnecessary, they’re repeatedly played in one’s mind. These obsessive behaviors, actions, and thoughts typically occur in a ritualized or repetitive manner to reduce the anxiety being felt. When left unmanaged, mild to severe OCD can dramatically impact your happiness, physical health, relationships, and career.
OCD therapy is designed to provide individuals with the coping skills they need to manage, mitigate, and move past their anxiety and OCD. Working together with their therapist, individuals will learn to reduce their physical symptoms, identify their triggers, and learn how to manage the thought patterns causing their anxiety and underlying symptoms.
Examples of OCD Compulsions
- Constantly double checking on things, such as switches, locks, or appliances
- Continually checking in on friends and family to ensure they are healthy and safe
- Counting, tapping, or repeating certain words or phrases to reduce anxiety
- Repeatedly arranging and ordering items in a specific order until they “feel right”
- Repeatedly reviewing your feelings, thoughts, actions, or conservations
- Accumulation of junk, such as old magazines or clothing (i.e. hoarding)
Examples of OCD Obsessions
- Fear of becoming infected by germs, bacteria, or dirt
- Fear of contaminating others with germs
- Fear of losing control
- Fear of harming yourself or others
- Intrusive explicit or violent thoughts and images
- Excessive focus on religious or moral ideas
- Fear of losing or not having things you might need
- Order and symmetry: the idea that everything must line up “just right”
- Superstitions: excessive attention to something considered lucky or unlucky
Helping You Live Your Best Life
At The Juniper Center, we understand it takes courage to ask for help, and you don’t have to face your fear alone. There is a life beyond your trauma. Using a combination of techniques at the forefront of neurological science and compassionate care, we empower our clients to live their best lives – free of excess worry, panic, and fear. Our team of mental health professionals leverages their extensive experience and training to create individualized treatment plans to help our clients reach their professional, personal, and mental health goals.
What matters to you, matters to us. Contact a member of our team to schedule your no-obligation consultation today. We look forward to hearing from you and helping you on your journey.
