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 (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 spending hours 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 infiltrate 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.
Compulsions 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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Persistent, intrusive doubts about causing harm to themselves or others. These doubts often revolve around fears of accidentally hurting someone through negligence or impulsive actions.
People with this form of OCD may engage in compulsive behaviors such as repeated checking, reassurance seeking, or mental reviewing to neutralize their anxiety.
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Unwanted, distressing, and often taboo thoughts, images, or impulses. They often involve socially unacceptable themes such as violence, harm, sexual content, or blasphemy.
These thoughts enter the mind without invitation and go against the person’s values and self-image, causing significant anxiety or guilt.
Despite their disturbing nature, individuals with this type of OCD do not want to act on these thoughts and are deeply distressed by them. The key characteristic is that the thoughts are ego-dystonic, meaning they conflict with the person's values and self-image.
How I can help
OCD and anxiety are not the same, but anxiety does have a strong hold in OCD.
As a therapist 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. My goal is to help you break free from the constant grip of OCD and regain control over your life.
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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Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is considered the gold standard in treating OCD. It involves two main components:
Exposure: Gradually and intentionally confronting situations, thoughts, or images that trigger your anxiety—without performing the compulsive behaviors. This helps desensitize your brain to the distressing stimuli over time. Allowing your body and brain to build confidence in understanding your ability to tolerate the discomfort and learn that your anxiety will naturally decrease over time.
Response Prevention: Learning to resist the urge to perform compulsive actions. Over time, this breaks the cycle of OCD and reduces the need to engage in rituals.
ERP is effective because it allows you to experience anxiety without the "safety" of compulsions, helping you learn that your fears often don’t come true and that anxiety naturally decreases over time.
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Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (IB-CBT)
Inference-Based CBT focuses on how OCD leads to mistaken conclusions about your thoughts and the world around you. It helps you recognize and challenge the irrational beliefs that keep OCD alive, such as:
"If I don’t do this ritual (cleaning, checking, counting, googling, needing others to reassure things are ok, etc.), something bad will happen."
"Having this thought means I’m a bad person."
By using I-CBT, we’ll work together to uncover the thinking patterns that fuel your OCD and shift those beliefs toward healthier, more realistic perspectives. With I-CBT, you’ll learn that thoughts themselves are not dangerous and don’t have to dictate your behavior.
Thoughts do not equal action or behaviors.
