Obsessive-compulsive disorder can have a devastating impact on individuals, families, and couples. Thankfully, there are effective treatments to help all ages, for all types of obsessions and compulsions. OklahomaOCD.com helps get you connected to those mental health providers who are using evidence-based, scientifically proven methods to treat OCD.
Learn about what OCD looks like, what contributes to causing it, and who has it.
Learn about what types of treatments have been shown to help decrease the symptoms of OCD and the impairment it causes.
Meet a vetted list of providers, each who practices our best types of treatments for OCD.
OCD is marked by two primary symptoms: obsessions and compulsions.
Obsessions are unwanted, unpleasant thoughts, images, or urges that come to mind. They make you feel anxious, nervous, or upset, and most people try to do something to "get rid" of the thoughts. These can either be by avoiding things that might cause you to have the though in the first place, or by doing a compulsion after you have an obsessive thought. Common obsessions include worries about contamination, perfectionism, harm, religious ideas, or unwanted sexual thoughts.
Compulsions are anything you do to get rid of the anxiety and distress caused by obsessions. They can be actions seen by those around you or by doing mental acts. Common compulsions include checking, repeating, washing or cleaning, hoarding, ordering, praying, and counting.
To learn more, you can read a book chapter by Dr. Caleb Lack on the topic, or watch a lecture by him.
In brief, OCD appears to be caused by a complex interaction of our history as a species, how our genes express themselves in our brains, and the environment we grow up and experience every day. If someone tells you that "this one thing" causes OCD, they are missing the big picture or misinformed. In fact, this multitude of interactive causes is the reason why we have both biological and psychological treatments that can effectively help relieve OCD symptoms.
To learn more, you can read a book chapter by Dr. Caleb Lack on the topic, or watch a lecture by him.
The short answer is "A lot of people." In the United States, about 1% of youth and around 1.5% of adults meet diagnostic criteria for OCD. In Oklahoma alone, that's over 41,000 people. In children, it's more common in males, but it evens out in the population by adulthood. Almost all people with OCD report significant distress from the obsessions and a negative impact on family functioning, school or work, and social life.
To learn more, you can read this article on OCD epidemiology.
Psychotherapy can be a life changer for people with OCD and their families, but it needs to be the right kind of psychotherapy. In particular, your mental health provider needs to be trained in and have extensive supervision in cognitive-behavioral therapy, usually referred to as CBT. CBT helps people learn how to recognize, cope with, and change thoughts, behaviors, and emotions that are maladaptive and causing them difficulty.
If you have OCD, it is crucial that your CBT clinician engages in exposure with response prevention (sometimes called exposure with ritual prevention), usually abbreviated as ERP. This is the careful process of purposefully confronting situations, objects, or emotional states that cause obsessions and subsequent distress to arise (exposure). Your therapist then helps you break the habit of giving in to what OCD wants you to do by learning how to stop doing compulsions (response/ritual prevention). Although it sounds very scary to not give in to OCD and do a compulsion, by doing so repeatedly we learn more effective ways to coping with and manage your distress and anxiety. In turn, your obsessions will stop being as frequent, as "loud," and as upsetting.
In addition to ERP, your CBT clinician will also engage in strategies to target cognitive and emotional aspects of OCD. These usually include cognitive restructuring, acceptance, and mindfulness techniques. While these techniques alone aren't usually enough to help someone with OCD, when combined with ERP they are incredibly powerful.
Research over the past 40 years has shown CBT to be a safe, effective, and long lasting way to decrease OCD's symptoms and negative impact on your life. Large scale analyses show that about 70% of people that receive this type of CBT have a significant decrease in symptoms and increase in functioning, with about 50% of people no longer meeting criteria for an OCD diagnosis. Even better, these positive benefits can be maintained for years post-treatment, as the goal of CBT is to make you into your own therapist.
Depending on a person's symptoms, therapy can be effective if conducted in a variety of settings and levels of intensity. For many people, face to face appointments in a provider's office are a great option. But, telehealth using CBT with ERP has been found to significantly reduce symptoms as well. Your mental health provider can help determine if a weekly outpatient, intensive outpatient, or even inpatient means of treatment is likely to be the most effective for you.
To learn more about what CBT for OCD looks like, please visit this site.
While CBT is currently recommended as the first line of treatment for OCD, not everyone has access to those providers or benefits. In such cases, certain types of medications called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have been well studied and found to work better than placebos in both youth and adults. Importantly, studies have found that response for OCD symptoms usually requires higher doses of SSRIs than typically used in depression or general anxiety. As such, side effects are fairly common and the benefit on OCD symptoms must be weighed against any negative side effects you are experiences.
In Oklahoma, any medical provider with prescription privileges (medical doctors, physician assistants, advanced practice nurses) can help evaluate and prescribe the medications commonly used to treat OCD. However, due to the dosages typically needed, it is highly recommended to seek treatment from a prescriber with special training in and knowledge of mental health, such as a psychiatrist (a medical doctor with specialized experience in mental health) or APRN-PMHNP (a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner).
To learn more about medication for OCD, please visit this site.
Over the past decade there have been exciting developments in using various methods to directly or indirectly stimulate various areas of the brain that are involved in OCD. These methods are primarily reserved for treatment non-responders (i.e., people who have not responded to multiple trials of CBT and medication), and there are many fewer providers of these types of services nationwide. The two broad categories of treatment are deep brain stimulation (DBS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
TMS for OCD involves the non-invasive use of powerful electromagnets that target specific areas of the brain circuitry involved in OCD. It is used for those who have either had no or not sufficient response to doing CBT with ERP and/or medication. Typically it is administered in an outpatient location for multiple days per week for several weeks, usually taking around an hour per day. It is then tapered off across time as symptoms decline, with the potential for "booster" sessions later. Research has found that specifically-focused TMS treatment can help reduce symptoms in 40-60% of individuals. To learn more about TMS for OCD, please visit this site.
DBS involves the surgical implantation of electrodes into the brain that then receives electrical impulses from a device implanted in the chest. Long approved for movement disorders such as Parkinson's and essential tremor, in the U.S. the device falls under a "humanitarian use" approval for OCD. It has shown promise, with anywhere from 30-60% of patients reporting improved OCD symptoms after the procedure. Due to lack of insurance coverage and intensity of the procedure, it is typically used as a treatment of last resort.
In Oklahoma, you can find a TMS provider by visiting the websites of the companies that manufacture the FDA approved devices:
- BrainsWay
- MagVenture
Each of the below mental health clinicians has high level training in and has undergone expert supervision for providing cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) focusing on exposure and response prevention (ERP), as well as other evidence-based modalities for OCD and related problems.
Dr. Lack is an internationally known clinician, researcher, and professor who has specialized in OCD and related problems since 2005. He regularly trains clinicians across the US and around the globe in how to to treat OCD, PTSD, and BFRBs using CBT, as well as training medical providers in the use of deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS) for OCD and MDD.
He maintains a small private practice in Edmond, OK where he provides treatment to youth and adults with OCD, anxiety, trauma, and related problems via in office, telehealth, and home visits. As a PSYPACT provider, he can provide telehealth to people living in any participating state.
Elle has been working extensively with people who have OCD and related problems since 2017, including doing partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient work. She utilizes ERP, CBT, ACT, BA, and DBT Skills to treat a variety of disorders including OCD, skin picking, hair pulling, hoarding, phobias, BDD, GAD, social anxiety, panic, depression, and eating disorders.
She is a board certified telemental health provider licensed to see clients in Oklahoma, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Florida.
Chad's career has centralized around the treatment of phobias & obsessive compulsive and related disorders. Utilizing the best evidenced therapeutic approaches, Chad works with individuals to address intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.
Additionally, he works with a number of related concerns such as trichotillomania, excoriation (dermatillomania), and phobias. His work in anxiety related research has been presented locally, nationally, and internationally. Chad has also presented professionally on anxiety and obsessive compulsive related topics ranging from treatment to ethics.
Amelia is a Licensed Professional Counselor and holds an SOC7 certification with the World Professional Organization for Transgender Health, as well as memberships with the International OCD Foundation and Secular Therapy Project. She is also an approved LPC supervisor for the state of Oklahoma.
She works with adolescents and adults who are struggling with anxiety, Perfectionism, OCD, phobias and related disorders. She also provides affirming care for gender health concerns for all ages. Her practice is 2SLGBTQIA+ welcoming.
Vanessa has been providing therapy to people struggling with OCD, Anxiety, and Phobias for over eight years. She utilizes CBT, including exposure with response prevention, habit reversal training, CBIT, and written exposure therapy, to help people take control of and face their fears instead of avoiding them.
April has been practicing cognitive behavior therapy for over a decade, with a focus on exposure with response prevention. This included focused training in using exposure therapy both at the OUHSC's Child Study Center and through the IOCDF's Behavior Therapy Training Institute.
Amanda uses evidenced-based therapy approaches to help individuals with anxiety, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors, and panic attacks.
Additionally, she is trained and certified in Problematic Sexual Behavior – Cognitive Behavior Therapy (PSB-CBT) through the OU Center for Child Abuse and Neglect. Through her training in PSB-CBT, Amanda is able to work with youth who have sexual behavior difficulties.
Lisa is licensed in Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas. She specializes in OCD and anxiety based disorders including phobias. She is a graduate of Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas and the University of Tennessee in Memphis.
Lisa has advanced training with the International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation's Behavior Therapy Training Institute. She has also completed advanced course work in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
Dr. Gunter is a graduate of the University of Oklahoman and a licensed psychologist with over 15 years of experience in treating OCD, including training with the International OCD Foundation's Behavior Therapy Training Institute.
While Dr. Gunter works with numerous issues, his current practice focuses on the treatment of anxiety disorders, including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Panic Disorder, Phobias and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
Desirae primarily practices from a CBT framework, including Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In a nutshell, these frameworks aim to change the way we think about our thoughts and our relationship with ourselves and the world.
She sees people with OCD, anxiety, and related problems, including BFRBs. Desirae also has specialty training in working with the 2SLGBTQIA+ population.
Dr. Clark has specialized in the treatment of OCD since 2006. She has been an active member of the International O.C.D. Foundation and attends their yearly conferences. She has also received one-one-one consultation with a nationally recognized OCD therapist and author.
Dr. Clark's doctorate degree is in child psychology and she has combined this expertise with her training in ERP therapy to provide successful treatment to those diagnosed with OCD as young as 6 years old. She enjoys working with the teen population as well. Dr. Clark maintains a private practice in Norman, OK where she provides individual therapy to clients with OCD and other anxiety disorders. She periodically facilitates support groups for teens and adults, as well.
Dr. Clark can be contacted at:
1818 West Lindsey, C-120
Norman, OK 73069
(495) 514-5353
E-mail (preferred): fairydoc@hushmail.com
Leslie currently lives in the Chicago area and provides professional counseling to those in Oklahoma, Illinois, Indiana, and Florida. She started working in the mental health field since undergrad and has over 3,330 supervised hours working at a higher level of care. She supports emerging adults and adults of diverse populations that live with varying levels of depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, trauma and struggle with life transitions and challenges.
To best meet the needs of each individual, she uses evidence-based practices including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Exposure Response Prevention (ERP), and Motivational Interviewing (MI).
Dr. Caleb Lack started this website in 2022 to help guide people in Oklahoma suffering from OCD and their families to mental health providers that are using evidence-based, gold standard treatment methods. As such, this website serves as a guide to reliable information, sound resources, and to clinicians that can help you on your journey towards defeating OCD.
Please note that OklahomaOCD does not directly match you with providers, give medical advice, or operate a clinical location. The providers listed are independent practitioners of mental health services.
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