Therapy for OCD
Life transitions often intensify doubt, anxiety, and the intrusive “what if” thoughts that OCD tends to latch onto. You may feel torn between wanting to move forward in your life and feeling pulled back by fears, uncertainty, or the urge to seek reassurance or perform rituals just to feel okay again. I-CBT and ERP offer a structured, empowering path for understanding these patterns and creating real, lasting change.
I-CBT helps you slow down and understand how OCD creates its stories—those intrusive narratives that feel urgent, threatening, and personal even when they aren’t rooted in evidence. Instead of getting caught in the cycle of fear and compulsions, I-CBT teaches you to identify and challenge the faulty inferences that drive OCD, allowing you to reconnect with your actual values and lived reality.
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) supports this process by helping you gradually face the situations, thoughts, or sensations that trigger anxiety—while learning not to give in to compulsions or safety behaviors. Over time, ERP rewires the brain’s threat response, showing you that you can tolerate discomfort, uncertainty, and fear without needing OCD to “keep you safe.”
Both approaches rest on the belief that you are not your OCD. The intrusive thoughts, the urges, the doubt—they’re all symptoms, not reflections of who you are. When you learn to relate to them with clarity, confidence, and understanding, you create space for healing, resilience, and freedom. Through I-CBT and ERP, meaningful change becomes not only possible, but sustainable.
What is I-CBT?
Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT) is an evidence-based approach designed specifically for treating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Rather than focusing on behaviors or past experiences, I-CBT targets the faulty reasoning process that leads people with OCD to believe intrusive thoughts, doubts, or imagined scenarios as if they were real and threatening.
Through I-CBT, you learn to recognize when you’ve stepped into the OCD story—and how to step back out. Instead of fighting with your thoughts or trying to get certainty, you build the ability to:
Notice faulty inferences and “OCD logic”
Reconnect with sensory reality and evidence
Strengthen trust in your real intentions, memory, and perception
Reduce the pull of doubt so compulsions lose their power
As you practice this, the OCD narrative loses its credibility, doubt quiets, and daily life becomes clearer, calmer, and more grounded. I-CBT helps you create distance from OCD and reconnect with your true self—one that is capable, confident, and able to move through life without fear-driven stories holding you back.
What is ERP?
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is the gold-standard, evidence-based treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It is highly effective in reducing anxiety, interrupting compulsive behaviors, and retraining the brain’s threat response. ERP helps you break free from the cycle of obsessions and compulsions by teaching you how to face discomfort with confidence and without engaging in the rituals that keep OCD alive.
At its core, ERP understands OCD as a fear-driven loop: intrusive thoughts or sensations create anxiety, compulsions temporarily relieve it, and the cycle repeats. ERP gently disrupts this process so your brain can learn something new and empowering.
Through ERP, you learn to face the obsession-triggering situations, thoughts, or sensations while resisting the urge to perform compulsions.By doing this, your brain gradually discovers that:
The feared outcomes don’t happen
Discomfort naturally rises and falls without you needing to “fix” it
You can tolerate uncertainty and anxiety
OCD’s demands lose their credibility over time
ERP helps you build confidence, resilience, and a new relationship with your thoughts—one where you no longer feel controlled by fear or compelled to respond to every intrusive thought. As you continue this work, the OCD cycle weakens, and you gain more freedom, clarity, and trust in yourself.gh life without fear-driven stories holding you back.
What to Expect as We Work Through OCD Together (I-CBT + ERP)
In OCD treatment sessions using I-CBT and ERP, there’s no pressure to “get it right” or perfectly describe what you're experiencing. Instead, we focus on creating a supportive, nonjudgmental space where you can explore your thoughts, doubts, and fears at a pace that feels manageable.You’ll learn how to recognize different “parts” of yourself like the anxious part, the perfectionist, or the exhausted part.
Here’s what you can expect:
A calm, collaborative environment where you can talk openly about your intrusive thoughts, urges, and fears without judgment.
Learning to spot the “OCD story,” the imagined scenarios or doubts that pull you away from what’s actually happening.
Building skills to challenge OCD logic so you can reconnect with real evidence, your senses, and your values.
Practicing ERP exposures together, slowly and safely facing the thoughts or situations that trigger anxiety—without turning to compulsions.
Learning to ride out discomfort, trusting that anxiety will rise and fall on its own without needing rituals to feel okay.
Reducing reassurance-seeking and analyzing, which strengthens confidence in your own judgment rather than OCD’s demands.
Gaining a sense of freedom and flexibility, as your brain learns that uncertainty is survivable and intrusive thoughts don’t define you.
OCD therapy with I-CBT and ERP isn’t about endless talking or reliving old fears.
It’s about rewiring patterns, building resilience, and helping you experience real, lasting relief so you can move through life with more clarity, ease, and confidence.
OCD Therapy in Austin, TX & Across Texas
I offer OCD therapy both in-person in Austin and virtually to clients anywhere in Texas. Whether you’re dealing with intrusive thoughts, compulsions, relentless doubt, or anxiety that feels impossible to shake, I-CBT and ERP can help you regain confidence and feel more in control of your daily life.
If you’re looking for a therapy approach that’s structured, supportive, and specifically designed for OCD—not just general anxiety—I'd love to connect.
👉 Schedule a Free Consultation to learn how I-CBT & ERP can help you break the OCD cycle and move forward with clarity and ease.