OCD Therapy for Creatives in Los Angeles
Process trauma, reduce anxiety, and reconnect with yourself through EMDR therapy.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based therapy that helps the brain reprocess distressing memories so they no longer hold the same emotional charge.
OCD Therapy for Creatives in Los Angeles
Are you struggling with thoughts that feel ridiculous or shameful? Maybe it feels like no one would understand, or there’s no one to talk to about what you’re going through.
OCD often causes us to retreat into ourselves, where our thoughts unfortunately get louder and intrude even more into our lives. Our need to engage in compulsive behaviors brings stress, sometimes panic, to everyday life. It takes away our time, our energy, and our sense of self.
Many people would identify with having thoughts that are stressful, or “out of the blue.” OCD thoughts can feel disturbing, as if we’re something we’re not.
When disturbing thoughts feel real, definitive, and possible, we feel engaged to either fend them off or do something about it. Neutralizing a disturbing thought feels better to do nothing at all, and so we end up engaging in compulsive cycles, over and over again.
I-CBT allows us to see behind the curtain and into the engine room of OCD. When we understand the mechanisms at play, we’re better equipped and empowered to change what we do with it.
What OCD Can Look Like
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is driven by doubt. A simple “what if” often feels urgent, or even dangerous. Thoughts feel real. Certainty feels unreachable.
Over time, OCD can distort your sense of self, your creative confidence, and your peace of mind. OCD can feel difficult to explain or talk about.
It can include:
OCD and Creative Professionals
Many artists identify with compulsive checking. Whether it be a new song, or a new writing project, the need to perfect our craft feels compelling and creatively driven. When OCD leaks into our creative process, suddenly it is driven by doubt. “What if I add this here, and that there? Maybe, but what if its never good enough?” OCD stretches our creative process into never ending cycles of creative self-doubt.
Therapy allows creative goals to be sharpened, and allows our OCD to really be seen for what it is, so it has less space to interfere with our artistry.
OCD therapy involves integrating your OCD in a way that empowers your creativity, and gives you the freedom to thrive outside of it.
Trauma / OCD Overlap
Sometimes, trauma events in life and PTSD can lead to an onset of OCD symptoms, which often brings more shame into a person’s sense of themselves. We often point to the trauma as the cause of our OCD, when research has shown that much of OCD can be attributed to genetic predispositions or neurological factors. An OCD engine that was once dormant can become activated, by no fault of our own. A lot of it is simply out of our control.
And yet, the “before” and “after” based on life before OCD often creates disparate narratives about ourselves and our lives. We want to feel we are moving forward, but feel compelled to ask ourselves why we are the way we are, and regret decisions we’ve made or events we’ve participated in. We blame ourselves, and we feel responsible for everything that has happened. OCD can cause us to magnify our sense of responsibility for the traumas we’ve experienced. In the process, we get caught deeper in the OCD bubble, and lose sight of the bigger picture, not just of the events we’ve experienced, but of our lives.
PTSD causes our nervous system to react to reminders of trauma events, and OCD keeps us reviewing these thoughts over and over again. We may feel compelled to engage in a compulsion if we believe it will prevent another trauma from occurring, or that it will mitigate some of the anxiety or more shameful or terrifying feelings underneath.
My Approach to OCD Therapy
If you’re looking for OCD therapy in Culver City, Midtown Los Angeles, or the greater Los Angeles area, my approach goes beyond simply managing anxiety. OCD often develops when the imagination becomes more convincing than your direct experience of the present moment, leading to persistent doubt, mental reviewing, and compulsive behaviors that can feel impossible to escape.
Understanding the multitudes of ways OCD can manifest in a person’s life can take the shame and the “edge” off of our experience of OCD. We understand that there is no limit to what OCD can cause us to imagine, and we also see that our OCD is often very specific about what it focuses on. When we see outside of the window of our own experience of OCD, there is often some relief.
I utilize I-CBT (Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) to help you develop an understanding of the OCD process and its basis, so it feels less mystifying in its experience. I-CBT helps us see our doubts and compulsions from their start, in full clarity, so we can understand why they felt so believable and anxiety-inducing in the first place.
In combination with EMDR, we develop a felt sense of trust, solidity, and nervous system regulation, to develop a sense of security outside of the frame of OCD, and in the greater frame of your life and personhood as a whole.
You don’t need less imagination. You need more choice in how it operates.
Reach Out & Reclaim Your Creative Focus
When OCD has less room to run the show, creative energy comes back. The work feels like yours again, not something you’re wrestling for control over.
Even reaching out can feel uncertain. OCD has a way of turning “should I ask for help” into its own loop of doubt. That’s okay. You don’t need to have it figured out before we talk.
I offer a free consultation for anyone with questions, or even doubts, about OCD or what therapy might look like. If you’re ready, I’d be glad to hear from you.
Perfectionism involves high standards. OCD involves repetitive doubt and compulsive attempts to resolve uncertainty. If your mind feels trapped in loops you can’t exit, OCD may be part of the picture.
Yes. I provide OCD and trauma therapy for creatives in Culver City and Mid-City areas, as well as via telehealth across Los Angeles and greater California.
Exposure principles may be incorporated when appropriate. My work also focuses on the reasoning process that fuels obsessive doubt through I-CBT.
Many creatives experience anxiety, trauma responses, and obsessive doubt in overlapping ways. Part of therapy involves clarifying what is happening so treatment is precise.