Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) for OCD
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), can lead to high levels of impairment, disruption, and lower quality of life.
At Willow Anxiety and OCD, we offer an intensive outpatient program (IOP) that provides more intense and frequent services than traditional outpatient treatment but is less restrictive than an inpatient program.
We offer only individual IOPs at this time.
What is an Intensive Outpatient Program for OCD?
For some clients, a higher level of care is required. In such cases, a main treating clinician will meet with the client 3 times a week for 50-minute psychotherapy sessions.
Additional sessions will be provided by our behavioral specialists who accompany and support the client as they engage in exposure and response prevention (ERP) assignments as directed by the main treating clinician. Up to 12 hours of additional sessions with a behavioral specialist may be scheduled per week, and each session may be up to 3 hours long with breaks.
Clients see movement at a much faster rate with an IOP compared to standard weekly programs.
We always start with a thorough intake that is comprehensive where we go over history, background, and do a diagnostic evaluation to create a clear picture of what is going on.
After the intake is complete, we create an individually tailored treatment plan that fits the client's specific needs. The duration of the IOP and the number of sessions per week will be determined at this point.
When working with younger children and teens, the sessions are split between working with children/teens and parents.
How do we treat OCD?
We use Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) as our main treatment and use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) informed interventions.
ERP is the gold standard for treating OCD. We work on gradually and gently exposing you to thoughts, situations, and impulses that make you anxious and then we work on tools to help you refrain from ritualizing.
Our goal is to teach you to accept uncertainty. In the process, you are going to learn acceptance of having OCD, the anxiety that comes with it, and having the obsessions that you may believe are horrible.
You will learn to stop ritualizing and deal with the obsessions and the anxiety more effectively. This process will help you reclaim your life and live according to your goals and values!
You can read more about OCD and ERP here.