OCD and anxiety don't exist in a vacuum. Neither does treatment.

Understanding when it's complicated. Helping adults overcome OCD, panic, and anxiety, even when trauma or substance use is part of the picture.

Theresa Schaffer
OCD & Anxiety Therapist
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

You’ve probably been calling yourself a worrier for so long it started to feel like just who you are.

 

On paper, life looks fine, and that’s part of what makes this hard to explain to anyone. You’re functioning. You go to work, you show up, you keep things running. But you’re exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with what actually happened that day, and half your attention is somewhere else entirely, running the same loop while you’re supposed to be present for the things that matter.

 

You’ve tried things. The breathing exercises, the apps, maybe a round or two of therapy. Nothing changed the loop, it just gave you something to do while it ran. That’s not because you didn’t try hard enough. It’s because those tools address relaxation, not the anxiety cycle. They were never going to touch what you’re actually dealing with. I specialize in OCD, panic disorder, and anxiety, not as a broad category but as a clinical focus. I use Exposure and Response Prevention because it has the research behind it, and I’m honest with you about what it requires. If you’re ready to do more than manage this, I’d like to talk.

You're in the Right Place If...

You’re right for my practice if your world has been getting a little smaller at the edges, not dramatically, but enough that you notice. You took the long way last week to avoid the highway. You said no to something you actually wanted because the uncertainty felt like too much. You’re still showing up, still keeping things running, but it’s costing you in a way nobody around you can see, and most days nobody does. You’ve probably been reading about OCD or anxiety long enough that you suspected what was wrong before you ever looked for a therapist, and you found the IOCDF website before you started making calls because you weren’t interested in a generalist.

 

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you’ve been carrying the fear: what if I show someone exactly what my brain does and they look at me differently. That thought makes sense. It’s also the thing that’s been keeping you stuck. I work exclusively with adults. I specialize because it makes me better at this specific work. The clients who come here aren’t looking for someone to listen. They’re looking for someone who already knows what they’re about to say.

How I Can Help

How I Can Help — OCD

What makes OCD debilitating isn’t the content of the obsessions, it’s the relationship you’ve developed with them, and the rituals you’ve been performing to get relief. Using ERP and ICBT, we work on changing what you do with the thoughts, not on making them stop.

How I Can Help — Panic Disorder

Panic attacks are terrifying, and the anticipatory anxiety that builds around them is often worse than the attacks themselves. Treatment targets both: the physical fear cycle and the avoidance that’s been quietly shrinking your world.

How I Can Help — Health Anxiety

Reassurance doesn’t work, and at some point, you know that. We work on breaking the checking and reassurance-seeking cycle so you can stop outsourcing certainty to Google.

How I Can Help — Social Anxiety

Fear of judgment and embarrassment is one thing. The ways you’ve been quietly reorganizing your life around it is another. Treatment addresses both.

What Makes My Approach Different

I use evidence-based treatment: ERP for OCD and panic, and Inference-Based CBT for OCD and health anxiety, because those are the treatments with the research behind them. I-CBT addresses the reasoning behind the obsession rather than just the response to it. Most therapists who treat OCD don’t use it, I do.

I also treat clients whose OCD or anxiety is complicated by substance use. The IOCDF has identified this as an underserved population, most OCD specialists aren’t trained to treat both. I spent more than twenty years in substance use treatment before opening this practice. That background didn’t go anywhere.

I’m also direct. I’ll tell you what treatment involves, what it’s going to ask of you, and what you can realistically expect. Recovery from OCD and anxiety requires real effort, exposure work is uncomfortable by design. I won’t promise you calm. I’ll help you build tolerance for uncertainty, and over time, that changes everything.

 

Take the Next Step

You've been living with this long enough. It's time to get the specialized help you deserve.

In our first conversation, we'll discuss what you're struggling with, explore whether my approach is right for you, and create a plan to help you start feeling better.

Feeling Anxious Right Now?

Download The Calm Reset, a short, therapist-created guide with 3 evidence-based tools to help your nervous system settle.

 

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Feeling anxious or stuck in your head?

I created a short, practical guide with calming tools I use in my therapy practice to help reduce overthinking and bring your nervous system back to baseline.

If Your Brain Won't Stop, Start Here.

You’ve probably spent a lot of time trying to think your way out of this.

Googling at midnight.

Asking people around you for reassurance.

Running the thought through your head one more time to make sure.

It’s exhausting, and it’s not working, not because you’re doing it wrong, but because anxiety and OCD get stronger, the harder you fight them.

 

This free guide explains what’s actually happening and what it takes to change it.

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No spam. Just the guide.