We Care About OCD

Living a life where you're dealing with anxiety alongside symptoms of obsessions and compulsions can be quite scary. Navigating these experiences can become less intimidating when we gain an understanding of what we're going through and we have the support to take deliberate steps towards addressing it. There may be instances where those in your life don't fully understand what you are going through, leading you to keep your intrusive thoughts and compulsive urges to yourself. It's important to know that you're not alone, as these symptoms are more common than you might realize.

We specialize in offering evidence-based approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exposure Response Prevention, and we provide intensive OCD sessions to assist individuals who are feeling overwhelmed, isolated, or uncertain while dealing with issues related to OCD, anxiety, and phobias. Sometimes, these challenges are intertwined with other difficult situations you're working through, such as recovering from traumatic experiences, managing social anxiety, or coping with panic attacks.

By providing thoughtful, collaborative services rooted in compassion, humility and respect, our hope is to help you build the confidence and the strategies to combat your inner critic in the face of personal and societal adversity. Reach out to Pothos today for a free phone consultation.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

CBT offers a "here and now" approach to therapy that has the ability to help people empower change within their lives even when things seem hopeless and scary.

It helps us to explore the different ways we perceive and interpret meaning of our life experiences, or the lens through which we see the world, and enables us to renegotiate a healthier relationship with the emotions we feel.

CBT sets out to provide the tools that can help folks shape this lens in their journey toward long term healing.

Narrative Therapy

Narrative therapy is a collaborative, non-judgmental approach to counselling that centres people as the experts in their own lives.

People are not defined by their problems. Everyone carries skills, abilities, beliefs, values, and commitments that can empower them to change their relationship with the challenges influencing their lives.

This approach to therapy respects the broader context of people's lives, particularly in the various dimensions of diversity - including class, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, and ability

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a type of therapy that helps people deal with things that make them feel really worried or scared, which are called "triggers." It's an evidence-based therapy used to help people living with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Here's how ERP works:

1. 1. Facing Fears (Exposure): Imagine you have a scary thought or something that makes you really anxious, like germs or a fear of heights. In ERP, you slowly and safely face that fear a little bit at a time. It's like practicing to get used to it so it doesn't seem as scary anymore. For example, if you're scared of touching doorknobs because of germs, you might start by just thinking about touching a doorknob, then looking at one, and eventually touching one for real.


2. 2. Not Doing the Usual Thing (Response Prevention): Usually, when people feel anxious, they might do something to try and make the fear go away, like washing their hands over and over again if they're scared of germs, or rethinking events over and over again because they are afraid they have hurt someone. In ERP, you practice not doing those things (a.k.a. compulsions). This helps your brain learn that you don't need to do those things to feel okay.


3. 3. Getting Used to It: Over time, by facing your fears and not doing the usual things to try and make the fear go away, you start to feel less scared and more in control. It's like training your brain to be in the driver’s seat and not let the fears boss you around.

Trauma-Informed Care

Trauma-informed care shifts the focus of "what is wrong with me?" to "what happened to me". It helps us to understand that we have experiences, we don't need to be defined by our experiences.

Trauma-informed care seeks to recognize the widespread impact of trauma, then to understand and explore the various paths for recovery. We collaborate with you to make meaningful decisions about your care with transparency, humility and integrity, along a journey of building genuine trust.

We recognize, highlight and celebrate the strengths, resiliencies, and courageousness people hold.

Anti-Oppressive Practice

Anti-Oppressive Practice (AOP) is one form of social justice oriented social work.

Taking this approach to therapy, we recognize the context of multiple oppressions on mulitple fronts and the growing need for the fundamental re-organization of all levels of society.

There are many core insights held by the AOP perspective, notably that our everyday experience is shaped by multiple historic and structural injustices, and that collaborative approaches between therapists and those they support are necessary towards the journey of empowerment and change.