— Clinical specialty
OCD therapy
Do you experience certain thoughts or beliefs that are distressing and intrusive but you can't get rid of? Do you feel compelled to engage in certain behaviors or rituals over and over to calm those thoughts? Maybe you engage in skin picking, hair pulling, repeating things, or other compulsions to help keep those thoughts at bay?
If that's your experience, OCD is one of my core specialties — and it's treatable. As a licensed clinical psychologist, I treat OCD with exposure and response prevention (ERP), the gold-standard, evidence-based approach for interrupting the obsession-compulsion cycle, and with inference-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (I-CBT) in addition to ERP.
My approach to OCD
My individual therapy style is anchored in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and for OCD this includes exposure and response prevention (ERP) — the gold-standard, evidence-based treatment for obsessive-compulsive patterns. I take a holistic, whole-person approach to fully address your specific concerns, including related patterns like skin picking and hair pulling.
In addition to ERP, I also use inference-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (I-CBT) for OCD. Where ERP works through what you avoid, I-CBT works on the reasoning behind an obsessional doubt — how it comes to feel true, and what it draws on — so that the doubt itself carries less weight. Which of the two we start with, or how they are combined, depends on how your OCD shows up and what feels workable for you.
I take great care to assess the fit between my style and your needs. My goals are to empower you, instill self-confidence, and support you in your growth and transformation.
Expertise & training
OCD is one of my core specialties. I completed my doctorate in the UCSD/SDSU Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, followed by a clinical internship specializing in psychotherapy and cognitive/psychological assessments and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. I treat OCD with exposure and response prevention (ERP), the gold-standard, evidence-based approach.
I have worked in large hospital systems, small community clinics, inpatient units, outpatient clinics, Veterans Affairs hospitals, and specialty programs, with individuals across the age spectrum and with complex presentations — including obsessive-compulsive patterns alongside other diagnoses.
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- There are evidence-based treatments for what you're experiencing.
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