More OCD Tricks
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
6M ago
                         As I mentioned in my last post, OCD can be a difficult disorder to manage because it is full of tricks and unless you understand these tricks and learn how to play the game to win, then OCD has the upper hand. It's almost as if the OCD has a tenth degree black belt in karate and you are just beginning. In this blog post I will list three tricks that OCD uses to "trick" people into doing compulsions. Understanding and recognizing some of the tricks and dist ..read more
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One of OCD's Favorite Tricks
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
6M ago
       One of OCD’s Favorite Tricks! OCD has many tricks, maneuvers and distortions that keep you repeating your compulsions over and over, and one of the subtler ones is that the minute you don’t want a thought/feeling/urge then, guess what, you have that thought/feeling/urge!  And the less you want it and the more you resist it…the more you get it! This is especially relevant when the type of OCD is the Intrusive Thought version – usually unwanted sexual or harming thoughts about an inappropriate or vulnerable target.       &nb ..read more
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Cognitive Distortions and their Connections to Anxiety and Depression
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
6M ago
Hello Everyone, I covered the need to do exposure therapy for anxiety disorders in my last blog post, but I didn’t spend much time talking about another aspect of treatment. As you may already know, the preferred form of treatment for anxiety disorders is Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and the exposure work is the “Behavior” part of that framework. The “Cognitive” part may be just as important as the behavioral part for many clients. Below you will find a list of what are called “cognitive distortions”. These are common mistakes in people’s thinking that can lead to anxiety and depression. T ..read more
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10 Tips for Managing Anxiety
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
7M ago
Hi Everyone, It’s been quite a while since I wrote a post, but I’m now back and intend to once again post weekly. I’ve had some big projects that I’ve been working on and that’s why I haven’t been posting. More on that later in this post. __________________________________________________________________________________________________                                            10 Tips f ..read more
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Hi Everyone, I hope you all had a safe and pleasan...
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
1y ago
Hi Everyone, I hope you all had a safe and pleasant Halloween. At my house we had far fewer trick or treaters this year than in past years…I’m guessing all the rain had something to do with our small turnout. It was really coming down!! Here is one of my favorite definitions of mindfulness: "Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally." Jon Kabat-Zinn A New Mindfulness Meditation Course As a follow-up to my last blog post on using mindfulness to manage an anxious mind, I thought I would furnish some additional resources for ..read more
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Hyper-Responsibility and OCD
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
2y ago
Hi Everyone,    As always I hope this post finds you healthy and happy.  I’ve had a number of clients recently who have struggled with the issue of (hyper-)responsibility and that made me think it might be a good topic for the blog. I hope you find this helpful.         An Inflated Sense of Personal Responsibility The issue of (hyper-)responsibility and the accompanying guilt shows up everywhere in OCD and across all forms of OCD. For many clients it is the core of their struggle with OCD. It can show up in a variety of ways. When ex ..read more
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Example of an Exposure Hierarchy
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
2y ago
Hi Everyone, In this post I thought I would return to expanding on the suggestions in the recent PDF I shared on Guidelines for Doing Exposure Therapy. Item 6 is:  “6. An exposure hierarchy may be a good place to start.” It is often recommended that when doing exposure therapy that a hierarchy be constructed. By “hierarchy” we mean that you identify situations that make you uncomfortable or scare you, give them a ranking between 0 and 100 (this is usually called a SUDS rating, which stands for Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale) and then to list the items from the most difficult at th ..read more
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OCD Treatment Tips
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
2y ago
Hi Everyone, Hope everything is good in your part of the world. This is a revised and updated version of a previous blog post. Even though I’ve done this type of work for over 35 years, I am still learning and as I learn I will from time to time go back and update/revise (and hopefully improve) some of my earlier posts.  Over the years I have gathered a number of tips/techniques that my clients have generally found helpful when seeking to better understand and manage their OCD. Listed below are some of what I believe to be the most useful ones: 1. Uncertainty is at the core of all types ..read more
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Act As If Your Anxiety Is Irrelevant
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
2y ago
Hello Everyone, I hope you are all doing well and that this post is helpful as you seek to manage your anxiety. In this week’s blog post I thought that I would continue with my theme of expanding upon the suggestions in the recent PDF I wrote on ways to do exposure therapy most effectively. If you haven’t already read my two previous posts on this topic you might want to check them out here and here. A point that’s worth mentioning again is the idea that though exposure therapy comes under the general heading of “psychotherapy”, it is not what most people think of as traditional therapy. With ..read more
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You Need to do Exposures Willingly and Regularly
Anxiety and Panic Treatment Center Blog
by Robert McLellarn
2y ago
Hello Everyone, Now that Spring is almost here I hope that the weather in your part of the world is getting warmer which will allow you to get outside more and enjoy the great outdoors. Here in Oregon where I live Spring is definitely on the horizon. In my last blog post I shared a PDF file (I made a few tweaks to the PDF so this week's version is slightly different than last weeks) that I had created listing what I believe are some of the important aspects of doing exposure therapy to get the most out of the work that you’re doing. I thought I would continue to expand upon some of those poi ..read more
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