OCD Therapy | Health Anxiety Treatment

You may be tired from how much your mind is trying to protect you. The checking, reviewing, preparing, scanning, replaying, or searching for certainty can take up so much space, even when part of you knows the loop is exhausting. OCD can make it feel like rest has to be earned through certainty, and certainty keeps moving further away.

I'm Danielle Wiggins, a somatic psychotherapist and the founder of Space Takes Practice. I work with thoughtful, sensitive people whose inner worlds can feel intense, fast, and difficult to soften around. My approach is grounded in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), while also drawing from somatic psychotherapy, nervous system awareness, relational therapy, and training in Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT). Together, we become curious about the pursuit of certainty, building more flexibility, trust, and capacity for uncertainty so your thoughts, sensations, and urges no longer have to determine what happens next. On this page, you'll learn more about OCD therapy, how I approach this work, and whether this way of working feels like the right fit for you.

OCD therapy supports people living with intrusive thoughts, urges, fears, compulsions, checking, reviewing, reassurance-seeking, or the need to feel certain before they can rest. OCD is not simply "overthinking." It can feel like your mind and body are asking you to solve, prevent, or neutralize something in order to feel safe. This can make ordinary decisions feel loaded, relationships feel fragile, and your inner world feel crowded by doubt, urgency, and the pursuit of certainty.

My work is grounded in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) while also drawing from somatic psychotherapy and a nervous system-informed approach. Together, we become curious about the patterns that keep the loop alive, building more flexibility, trust, and capacity for uncertainty over time.

• Repetitive checking or reviewing: You may reread messages, replay conversations, search online, or repeatedly scan your body, health, habits, or routines for certainty. Even when checking brings temporary relief, the uncertainty often returns, asking for one more answer, one more search, or one more check.
• Intrusive thoughts that feel urgent: You may have unwanted thoughts, images, or fears that feel difficult to dismiss. Even when you know they don't reflect what you want or believe, they can still feel urgent, significant, or impossible to ignore.
• Reassurance-seeking: You may ask others, research, confess, or mentally test yourself to feel certain. This can strain relationships subtly, not because you are doing something wrong, but because your nervous system keeps asking for safety from outside yourself.
• Avoidance of uncertainty: You may avoid decisions, conversations, places, or responsibilities that could trigger doubt. Daily life can begin to narrow around what feels manageable, even when part of you wants more freedom.
• Mental rituals: You may count, analyze, compare, repeat phrases, or try to “figure it out” internally. On the outside, nothing may look unusual, but inside your mind can feel crowded, fast, and hard to rest inside.

• Do I feel caught in loops of checking, reviewing, confessing, researching, or seeking reassurance? These patterns may be attempts to create certainty or relief, even when the relief does not last very long.
• Do intrusive thoughts feel urgent, meaningful, or difficult to let pass? You may know a thought does not reflect what you want, but your body still responds as if it needs to be solved or neutralized.
•  Do I avoid choices, conversations, or situations because I cannot feel certain enough? OCD patterns can gradually narrow daily life by making uncertainty feel too uncomfortable to move through.
• Do I spend a lot of energy trying to feel “right” inside? This may look like checking your feelings, testing your reactions, or trying to know with complete certainty that you are okay, safe, good, or not making a mistake.
• Do my relationships get pulled into my need for reassurance or clarity? You may ask for repeated confirmation or feel distressed by ambiguity, even when you care deeply and do not want to strain the connection.

Many of the people who find their way to my practice are thoughtful, sensitive, and tired of trying to think their way into safety. While OCD can look like intrusive thoughts or visible compulsions, it can also become organized around health, food, and the pursuit of certainty through making the "right" choices.

My approach is grounded in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) while also honoring the emotional, relational, and embodied experience of living with OCD. Together, we become curious about the loops that keep you stuck, building more flexibility, self-trust, and freedom over time.

This approach may not be the best fit if you're looking for reassurance that your fears aren't true or someone to help you find certainty. Instead, we practice building the capacity to move toward what matters, even when certainty isn't available.

In the first few sessions, we may map the OCD loop in real time: what triggers the fear, what the thought says, what happens in your body, what you do to get relief, and how long that relief lasts. We may look at checking, reassurance-seeking, reviewing, confessing, researching, avoidance, or mental rituals without treating them as something to be ashamed of. These patterns often began as attempts to feel safe.

Sessions may include conversation, somatic awareness, nervous system tracking, mindfulness-based practices, parts work, and support for noticing the urge to respond compulsively. We may slow down around a specific example, like rereading a message, needing to know if something feels “right,” replaying a conversation, or asking for reassurance even when part of you knows the answer will not last. I may help you notice where uncertainty lands in your body and what happens when you practice creating even a small amount of space before acting on the urge.

Weekly sessions are often helpful at the beginning so we can track patterns and build consistency. Progress may look like recognizing the loop earlier, tolerating uncertainty for a little longer, needing less reassurance, or recovering more quickly after an intrusive thought. This work is not about proving every fear wrong. It is about helping your system build a different relationship with fear, control, and uncertainty.