Commerce Psychiatric Services, serving Walled Lake, MI, and the nearby regions, offers in-person and virtual visits for those who want treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Though you may hear people saying they have OCD because of how meticulous they are, this condition is much more than that. Fortunately, if you're suffering from it, a member of the team can offer therapy to assist.
What's OCD?
OCD is a mental health condition that causes a person to either have repetitive thoughts, called obsessions, or hard-to-control repetitive behaviors, known as compulsions. You may have the desire to do something a specific way, which is known as having rituals. For instance, you may need to touch or tap something in a certain way before you can enter a room.
In some cases, the person may experience both of these. You may have intrusive thoughts over and over again, sometimes even disturbing or unwanted ones.
Some prime examples of OCD include having an overwhelming fear of germs, having to say certain words or phrases at specific times, having to organize items in certain ways, like by size, and checking repeatedly if the door is locked.
While it's normal for people to have some rituals, they become a problem when they’re interfering with your life. An example would be if you're spending more than an hour a day on rituals. Moreover, people with OCD don't tend to be happy after they do a ritual or partake in a compulsion. Instead, they feel relief from any anxiety it brings.
Getting Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most common treatment given to clients with OCD.
Exposure therapy is another option that essentially desensitizes you to your obsessions. Someone with a fear of dirt and germs may be exposed to something dirty. They then have to learn to calm themselves and not act on the compulsion. The exercise will increase in time and intensity over several sessions. Eventually, you learn how not to have that fear because you see nothing bad will happen by not acting on that compulsion.
At Commerce Psychiatric Services we also offer psychodynamic and psychoanalytic psychotherapies. These types of psychotherapy are more intensive and go beneath symptoms to the underlying emotional conflicts which cause the more surface symptoms allowing for a deeper, more long lasting change and improvement in your quality of life.
With a counselor from Commerce Psychiatric Services, serving Walled Lake and the neighboring communities for in-person visits or throughout the state for virtual ones, you can minimize symptoms and also choose among the other types of psychotherapies allowing you to move forward and live a life where symptoms or the underlying conflicts no longer hold you back.
Call 248-926-2497 today.