The Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center offers evidence-based therapy for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Our approach to therapy for OCD is compassionate, practical and goal-oriented and will help you make positive changes in your life. Through our online therapy program, we serve people anywhere in California including San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Orange County and anywhere in California. Our Center Director, Laura Johnson, LMFT, LPCC, has worked with more than hundreds of clients with OCD and is a specialist in this area.

There are an endless varieties of OCD. OCD tends to cause fear and uncertainty about the people and things we care about most. We work with many types of obsessive compulsive disorders including:

Contamination OCD – fears of germs or getting sick and dying from exposure to something dirty or unsafe resulting in excessive washing, showering and/or cleaning.

Just Right/Symmetry OCD – Needing things to be in just the right position or the same on both sides in order to alleviate tension or a sense of incompleteness.

Scrupulosity/Religious OCD – fear of doing or thinking something that might be immoral or offensive to God or your religion and excessive worry about going to hell.

Scrupulosity/Moral OCD – fear of doing or thinking something that might be counter to your ethical or moral values.

Safety Checking OCD – the need to repeatedly check your stoves, heaters, appliances, doors, and other items to be sure you are safe.

Postpartum OCD – intrusive, irrational thoughts of hurting your baby and checking behaviors and reassurance seeking that you would not or have not done anything harmful.

Harming Others OCD – fear of hurting another person especially a loved one or people who are important to you.

Relationship OCD – obsessive, irrational thoughts about relationship issues such as your partner’s faithfulness, obsessive jealousy or doubt about your love for your partner.

Sexually Intrusive Thoughts OCD – thoughts of a sexual nature that you find immoral or repugnant.

Sexual Orientation OCD/Gay OCD – excessive doubt about whether you are gay even though you are straight.

Health Obsessions/Hypochondriasis – excessive, irrational worry about getting a disease such as HIV, cancer or a sexually transmitted disease.

Hit and Run OCD – obsessive worry that you hit someone with your car and the need to go back and check to relieve anxiety.

Pure Obsessions/Mental Rituals OCD – intrusive or obsessive thoughts with mental rituals like counting or praying in order to neutralize the fears and reduce anxiety.

Self Harming OCD – excessive fear and doubt about whether you’ll go crazy and hurt yourself or commit suicide even though the idea of hurting or killing yourself is the last thing you want to do and you have absolutely no intention of acting on this thought.

Obsessive Compulsive Spectrum Disorders including trichotillomania/hair pulling, skin picking, body dysmorphic disorder, hypochondriasis/health anxiety and others.

What is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by unwanted, repetitive, irrational thoughts (obsessions) resulting in physical or mental acts (compulsions) that you feel driven to perform. In order to reduce anxiety, you may engage in physical or mental compulsions.  The goal of the compulsive behavior, or ritual, is to reduce anxiety by preventing the feared event or by reducing a sense of tension. Compulsions may seem irrational to the outside world but, when your perform these acts, your anxiety does go down in the short run. However, while your anxiety might be reduced temporarily, the obsessions soon return and you get stuck in a vicious cycle of performing time-consuming physical or mental rituals to reduce anxiety.

OCD is a neurological disorder. While OCD can’t be cured, there are effective therapies where you can learn to manage your OCD and your life can become better.

If you think you may have OCD, click here to take the OCD Quiz to find out.

How is OCD treated?

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is the treatment of choice for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). CBT for OCD includes exposure and response prevention. This means that you would be exposed to what you fear without engaging in your rituals. For example, if you feel a bump while driving and your OCD tells you to go back and check if you ran someone over, then the therapy involves not checking and learning to tolerate the anxiety of not knowing. The reason is because going back to check might reduce anxiety in the short run but the obsessive thinking will start again and if you continue to check, you get stuck in the OCD cycle. Click here for a more detailed description of Exposure and Response Prevention.

In addition to exposure and response prevention, metacognitive therapy has also been helpful for OCD. Metacognitions are thoughts abut thoughts. With OCD, many people become scared of their bad thoughts and start to believe they could really do the thing they are fearing. Some people believe having a bad thought is just as bad as doing the bad thought. In metacognitive therapy, you’ll learn to distance yourself from the thoughts and recognize them as coming from the OCD part of your brain. Generally with OCD, we don’t respond to the content of the thoughts like in traditional CBT because you probably know the content is irrational but you keep having the thought anyway. Instead, you will learn to reframe your thoughts about the thoughts.

OCD is a chronic condition that can flare up under stress and during life transitions. While many people can learn tools in a short amount of time to manage their OCD symptoms, most people need intensive and longer term treatment. Even when the OCD symptoms have been reduced, you may still need to see your therapist periodically for relapse prevention and tune-ups. For people with moderate to severe OCD, it is important to have an ongoing relationship with a trusted therapist.

How to Get Help for OCD in San Jose and California

Laura Johnson, LMFT, LPCC, Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center, provides therapy and counseling for OCD and anxiety in San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Orange County, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Roseville, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Cupertino, Los Altos and anywhere in California through our Online Video Program. Click to send an email  for more information on how we can help you manage OCD.

Silicon Valley Communities We Serve

Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center of Silicon Valley offers evidence-based therapy for Anxiety and OCD near the following Silicon Valley/San Jose communities:

San Jose Therapy Counseling • Saratoga Therapy Counseling • Los Gatos Therapy Counseling • Monte Sereno Therapy Counseling • Cupertino Therapy Counseling • Campbell Therapy Counseling • Mountain View Therapy Counseling • Los Altos Therapy Counseling • Sunnyvale Therapy Counseling • Santa Clara Therapy Counseling

CBT Online Video Therapy

CBT Online Video Therapy for anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) offered in all the above locations as well as the following California communities:

San Francisco Therapy Counseling • Sacramento Valley Therapy Counseling • Carmel CA Therapy Counseling • Santa Cruz Therapy Counseling •
Monterey Therapy Counseling • Los Angeles Therapy Counseling • San Diego Therapy Counseling • Orange County Therapy Counseling

CONTACT US
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