First of all, it's important to know that OCD is a treatable condition. It's not only treatable rarely or in special cases, but there are psychologists who focus on OCD in many locations who consistently successfully treat patients with OCD. If you live in the United States, you're likely to have such a psychologist in a location near you, as long as you don't live in the "middle of nowhere". However, if you're looking for a therapist for OCD it's important to find one who has OCD listed as one of their specialties, and it might be necessary to try out a few psychologists before you find the right one.
There are two things that can help OCD: therapy(or self help) and medication.
Therapy:
Unlike some disorders, OCD is not treated through just "talk therapy" where a psychologist just sits down with the patient and discusses their issues and offers advice. OCD is treated using a treatment method called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy involving Exposure and Response Prevention. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (or CBT) is a type of treatment that focuses on changing a person's behavior and involves doing actions to get better. Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a process where a person who has a certain fear or a situation they are trying to avoid is exposed to that fear (in a controlled setting of course where you wouldn't get too overwhelmed) and is encouraged not to do the things they normally do to avoid that situation, until it no longer becomes a fear.
All this terminology can sound confusing... But in short, OCD gets treated by exposing yourself to your fears and avoiding doing the OCD-like actions you usually do to curb them. Of course, talking can be used too. Your psychologist will likely often try to get you to think positively about the fears you have or the likelyhood of them (kind of makes sense since OCD fears are technically illogical) as part of the treatment. He or she will probably be the force that gently pushes you to continue with your work. You will also have to describe your OCD to your therapist, and you will always have to talk about what you will work on and how you will do it and about the pace you are comfortable with. But in the end the actual solution for OCD treatment is practicing avoiding the OCD actions you do.
As I said before if you are looking for a psychologist to treat or diagnose your or someone else's possible OCD, it's important that you find a psychologist who has OCD listed as one of their specialties. This is because OCD is treated differently from many disorders: instead of just using talking OCD treatment deal with changing your behavior in an organized fashion. There are psychologists today who don't know how to treat OCD and will try to use some version of talk therapy, which will not help with OCD and could even make it worse. Considering the prevalence of OCD (about 2% of people) this is sad, but it is a truth of today's world, so you should find a psychologist who specializes in OCD if you are looking to treat or diagnose OCD.
It also may be necessary to "shop" for therapists, depending on your luck. You may not find the perfect OCD therapist the first time, but you can keep looking. It could be that you found a psychologist who has diagnosed you with some level of OCD but their treatment method is not working for you - maybe it's too harsh. While OCD treatment involves doing things you're uncomfortable with you shouldn't be so uncomfortable you don't make any progress or feel like your psychologist doesn't understand you. You can try to find a better therapist for you. It may also happen that you haven't been diagnosed with OCD by anyone yet and want someone to determine that you have OCD, but the psychologist you started talking to doubts it. If in this case you still feel like you have OCD or any sort of problem that is difficult for you and that that therapist didn't understand you, you should continue your search for a therapist. Remember, some therapists are not trained well to recognize and treat OCD. And no matter what it is a therapist's job to help you if you have any sort of problem. Don't be discouraged by a bad therapist. Remember, there ARE good therapists for OCD out there.
Medication:
OCD can be alleviated with medication. Usually this is SSRI's like Prozac, etc. Strangely higher levels of SSRI's are usually needed for OCD treatment than for depression or anxiety. It is possible to skip medication and just treat OCD through therapy. Medication can be used to help therapy treatment. If you have severe OCD, it can help ease the anxiety during therapy treatment for OCD. Medication can help you feel better. But the crux of OCD treatment is the actions you do, abstaining from OCD actions. So that part is important anyway. Of course, if you are in a lot of depression or anxiety because of your OCD, you should definitely take medication if you feel okay about it, so that you don't have to suffer as much. Therapists don't usually administer medication unless the therapist is also a psychiatrist so you would go to a different person for medication than your therapist.
The difference between a therapist and a psychiatrist:
Only people with the title of a Psychiatrist are allowed to prescribe medication. Therapists are the people who will do the CBT/Exposure and Response Prevention with you. Therapists can be called psychologists, nurse practitioners, social workers, or psychiatrists. If your therapist is also a psychiatrist who is allowed to prescribe you medication, you're in luck for therapist searching. Otherwise you will have to find a different person to give you medication. If you use both, you will have to have appointments for your OCD with two different people. Usually your therapist can refer you to a psychiatrist who can prescribe you medication for OCD.
Still curious about the actual treatment process for OCD?
These are some things I, the writer of this blog, have gathered about OCD treatment. Like I said OCD can be also treated with medication, or medication can help speed up the main action course of treatment, but for now we will just talk about non-medication treatment.
Like I said, OCD treatment is all about resisting your OCD urges and not doing the OCD things. Simple. For example, say you are tempted to wash your hands any time you touch the garbage. The treatment is to simply NOT wash your hands. In the end that is what you have to do. However there are some things you should know that will help you:
- repetition is important - You may force yourself to not wash your hands after touching the trash can. What will very likely end up happening is you'll calm down after a while and it won't be as bad as you thought. But you still might feel a little bit uneasy about it after your first time. Don't give up! One of the most important things in OCD treatment is repetition. You have to do it again. And again. Pretty much until it doesn't bother you anymore. Remember, it's always easier than you think once you do it. And it gets easier the more you do it. Eventually you forget about it. But repetition is important.
- mindfulness - A lot of OCD therapists employ this method. It's basically where, after you have done an exposure like forcing yourself to touch a trash can and then not wash your hands, you sit down, close your eyes and just be mindful of how you are feeling. Ignoring thinking about the OCD thing may not get you anywhere. After all, you are trying to ignore having to think about it by doing the OCD action. Are hands actually dirty if you touch the trash can for one second? What would happen to you? These are questions you naturally don't want to think about, probably because thinking about them gives you anxiety, so you wash your hands to not deal with it. With mindfulness, you are mindful of it and it gives your brain time to process the situation and figure out why your OCD thoughts are illogical. I found it helpful during my treatment to try to tell myself why my OCD fear is wrong, even if I didn't feel that way at first. But with mindfulness you don't have* to try to convince yourself anything. Your brain eventually levels out the situation on its own.
- avoidance - The truth about OCD Exposure and Response Prevention is you're not gonna like it. Your OCD will try to convince you to give into it. It might even feel like any assignment you give yourself or your psychologist gives you is an exception. The thing is, you will very likely feel like it. But through actually doing it (at your own pace if you want) and employing mindfulness and repetition you will start feeling like it wasn't that bad at all!
There are some other things you may wish to know:
OCD treatment doesn't have to be extremely overwhelming of course. You have the right to choose the pace you go at. You CAN just throw yourself in there and do really bold things for you - that will also work! But you can also go slowly and do the easy things first, and in general do only what you can handle. And you will slowly get better! The important thing is just to not go so slow you're not making progress, or going backwards. Just keep making progress.
When doing an exposure for OCD or preventing yourself from doing an OCD thing in every day life, you will* feel some anxiety. But anxiety goes down after some time. And the more you do it, the less your anxiety is to begin with. With repetition, you will not have anxiety about it anymore. It can actually speed up your progress if you DO put yourself into situations where you do get anxiety from not performing your OCD ritual, or even making yourself do something anti-OCD, so anxiety is good for OCD treatment, it helps treatment go faster.
Sometimes OCD is thought-based. OCD doesn't have to be defined by actions you do like washing hands. Intrusive thoughts can be OCD, and in this case it's the thoughts themselves that compose your OCD. I, the person who's writing this blog, don't have a lot of experience with this type of OCD, since my OCD was mostly action based. But from what I've heard the treatment involves letting yourself think those thoughts. An exposure for this can even be thinking those thoughts on purpose. Like I mentioned before, your brain levels off on its own. My psychologist told me of another patient she had who had intrusive thoughts as part of her OCD. Their treatment plan was for her to actually think those thoughts on purpose and after a while she got much better. She was even one of the patients my psychologist had who took the fast route, and just did the worst exposures to get better faster. And she is better now! Those thoughts don't bother her anymore. (But for more accurate information about the thought based OCD you may want to consult an OCD therapist.)
I know, with OCD treatment, you pretty much have to have some anxiety. And that really sucks. Having to go through any amount of anxiety really really sucks. But at this day and age that is the only way psychologists know how to treat OCD. Overall though, it's way better to treat OCD than to continue living with OCD. Feeling better at the end will be worth it. And remember, it's never as bad as you think. You will get better faster than you think. If you are having a lot of trouble with OCD treatment, or even if you're not, medication can be used on the side. Medication and therapy together are actually recommended for severe OCD. But you can certainly use medication with any level of OCD.
The self-help route:
The treatment for OCD is avoiding your OCD actions and just doing normal actions, or letting yourself think your OCD thoughts until they don't bother you. That's it. So, if you are brave enough to do this, you are free to help yourself! Plus, there are many self help books out there. It might be easier to go solo if you have only mild OCD.
But if this route proves too difficult for you, there are therapists for OCD who can help you do it since they're professionals and have had experience treating others with OCD, and there are psychiatrists who can prescribe medication.
The point of all this is. You're not alone. If you need help, seek help. If you can help yourself, help yourself. Just don't procrastinate in getting help.
If you live in a location where treatment is not easily available, like in a country outside of the US without many OCD therapists, one possible option is online therapy. I have not looked too much into this. But some websites offer online therapy where you can talk to a therapist through a video software like Skype. This can be called Telehealth. In the US, the therapist has to be licensed in the state of the person he or she is treating. This makes it harder to get treatment from a psychologist in another state. However, some countries don't have those laws and a therapist from the US might help someone who lives in another country.