Kaduk Therapy
therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
Online in Washington state
Do i have ocd?
OCD in a nutshell: intrusive, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors, thoughts, or images (compulsions) that leave you trapped in a cycle of anxiety and relief-seeking patterns.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder has been widely minimized and misunderstood through casual statements like “I’m so OCD, I just love things so neat!”.
But when you find yourself preoccupied in disinfecting rituals and avoiding coming into contact with ‘contaminated’ things, you wish you could live with things being “just neat”.
If you experience the distress of OCD you understand too well the pressure it puts on a person. And when left untreated it can sneak into every aspect of your life.
Types of ocd
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Fear and anxiety of germs, dirt, or illness.
To reduce this distress, people engage in compulsive behaviors such as excessive hand washing, cleaning, avoiding certain places or objects, or seeking reassurance.
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Extreme need for objects, thoughts, or actions to be arranged in a specific, precise order or symmetry.
Individuals with this type of OCD often experience intense discomfort, anxiety, or distress if things are perceived as uneven, misaligned, or disorderly.
Rituals may include repeatedly arranging or rearranging items until they feel "just right," aligning objects symmetrically, or performing actions in a particular sequence.
These behaviors are driven by an internal urge to reduce distress rather than by practical necessity.
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Constant, unwanted thoughts about accidentally hurting themselves or someone else. They worry they might cause harm by making a mistake or acting without thinking.
To feel better, they might do things like checking over and over, asking others for reassurance, or going over things in their mind to make sure everything is okay.
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Unwanted, distressing, and often taboo thoughts, images, or impulses.
These thoughts often involve things that are seen as wrong or not okay, like violence, hurting others, sexual topics, or saying bad things about religion.
These thoughts show up without warning and don’t match the person’s beliefs or who they think they are. This can cause a lot of worry or guilt.
While the thoughts are generally scary or disturbing, the person does not want to act on them. These thoughts feel wrong to the person—they don’t fit with how the person sees themselves.
How I can help
I’m trained in both Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Inference-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT).
I offer evidence-based treatment methods tailored to your unique experience with OCD.
You can decide which treatment option feels the best fit for you, and I'm happy to discuss them further to help you decide.
ERP or I-CBT?
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Considered the gold standard in treating OCD.
Teaches how to face your fears without doing your usual habits or rituals.
Here's how it works:
People with OCD can feel really anxious about something—like germs or something bad happening—and they do certain things (like washing hands over and over or checking locks) to feel better.
"Exposure" means slowly facing the thing that makes you anxious—like touching a doorknob or not checking the stove.
"Response Prevention" means not doing the habit that usually makes you feel better—like not washing your hands right away.
By practicing this, your brain learns that the scary feeling goes away on its own, and that the fear wasn’t really dangerous.
Think of it like this: You’re training your brain to be brave and showing it that you don’t need to do those OCD habits to be safe.
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People with OCD often get stuck on scary thoughts that feel real, even when they aren’t.
Instead of focusing on the actions (like handwashing or checking things), I-CBT looks at the doubts and "what if" thoughts that start the cycle.
Here's how it works:
People with OCD often imagine that something bad might happen, like "What if I left the stove on and the house burns down?"
I-CBT helps to see that this imagined danger isn't based on real evidence.
ICBT teaches to trust what they know and what they can see, instead of letting scary guesses take over.
