Home · Conditions · OCD
Medically reviewed by Jay Borrego, DNP, PMHNP-BC, CRNA · Updated September 2026
Common signs
Sound familiar?
✓ Intrusive thoughts that feel sticky and shameful
✓ Rituals or mental checking that buy short relief
✓ Reassurance-seeking that never quite lands
✓ Contamination, harm, symmetry or moral themes
✓ Hours lost to loops you can see are irrational
✓ Avoiding triggers instead of living
Not a fit: A checklist is not a diagnosis — an evaluation is. If several of these fit, it's worth a conversation.
How we evaluate it
OCD hides — average time to diagnosis is over a decade, because people are ashamed of the thoughts. Our evaluation names the themes without flinching, screens for the tic-related and hoarding variants, and uses Y-BOCS tracking so progress is measurable.
How we evaluate it
First-line care is exposure-and-response-prevention-informed therapy plus SSRIs — which in OCD often work only at higher doses than depression dosing, a detail many prescribers miss. Augmentation strategies exist for partial response, and we use them.
Cost & insurance
Evaluations and follow-ups bill to our participating plans or transparent self-pay. Benefits verified and your expected cost reviewed before your first visit.
What measured care looks like
Y-BOCS tracked at every visit
The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale is scored before each appointment, so improvement — or its absence — is visible early and the plan changes when the data says to. Illustrative course shown; individual results vary.
What's different here
Why ordinary talk therapy can make OCD worse
Reassurance feels like help and works like a compulsion: every 'you're fine' buys minutes of relief and strengthens the loop. Well-meaning therapy that analyzes the content of intrusive thoughts does the same. Exposure and response prevention does the opposite — it sits with the doubt and drops the ritual — and it's the therapy with actual evidence. Our therapy is ERP-informed, and we refer for intensive specialty ERP when that's the right call.
SSRIs for OCD often need higher doses for longer — 10 to 12 weeks — than for depression. A 'failed' SSRI at a depression dose hasn't been tried yet.
Researching, not ready to book? Text us a question — a real person answers, no appointment, no pressure.
-Questions
OCD questions
Having them is human; OCD is when they stick. Intrusive harm or taboo thoughts in OCD are ego-dystonic — the opposite of intent — and clinicians who treat OCD know the difference.
Possibly dose and duration — OCD frequently needs 2–3× depression doses for 10–12 weeks. That's an evaluation question, not a failure.
Therapy here is ERP-informed and coordinated with medication in one chart; where intensive specialty ERP is the right call, we refer honestly and stay involved.