OCD

OCD Hypnotherapy in Newcastle & the North East

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can involve persistent unwanted thoughts, images or urges that cause significant anxiety, together with behaviours or mental rituals that you feel compelled to perform in order to reduce that distress.

At Peaceful Minds in Newcastle, Sian Barnard provides professional therapy for OCD, using CBT alongside clinical hypnotherapy and psychotherapy techniques to help you understand the patterns that maintain obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours.

Understanding the Cycle of OCD

OCD often develops into a cycle between intrusive thoughts, anxiety and compulsive behaviour. An unwanted thought or doubt may appear and feel extremely important or threatening, creating a strong urge to do something that makes you feel safer or more certain.

Compulsions can take many forms. They may include checking, cleaning, repeating particular actions, seeking reassurance or performing mental rituals such as repeatedly reviewing events or trying to neutralise unwanted thoughts.

Carrying out the compulsion can temporarily reduce anxiety, but that relief can reinforce the belief that the ritual was necessary. The next time a similar thought appears, the urge to perform the compulsion can become even stronger.

Therapy can help you recognise this cycle and begin changing the way you respond to obsessive thoughts and uncertainty.

Changing Your Response to Obsessive Thoughts

Sian uses CBT alongside clinical hypnotherapy and psychotherapy techniques, tailoring therapy to the particular thoughts, fears and behaviours you are experiencing.

CBT can help you identify unhelpful beliefs surrounding intrusive thoughts, responsibility, danger and the need for certainty. Therapy can also help you gradually reduce compulsive responses and become more comfortable allowing anxiety and uncertainty to pass without immediately performing a ritual.

Clinical hypnotherapy may be incorporated alongside CBT to support relaxation and reinforce calmer, more constructive ways of responding to anxious thoughts.

The aim is not to prevent unwanted thoughts from ever entering your mind, but to help you give them less importance and feel less compelled to respond to them.

OCD Therapy in Newcastle & Gosforth

Sian is a Harley Street trained clinical hypnotherapist and experienced CBT therapist providing therapy for OCD and obsessive-compulsive difficulties in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Face-to-face appointments are available from Peaceful Minds at the Regent Centre in Gosforth, with online appointments also available if you would prefer to receive therapy from home.

If obsessive thoughts, checking, rituals or reassurance seeking are taking up significant amounts of your time or interfering with everyday life, therapy can help you understand the cycle and develop healthier ways of responding.

How We Can Help

Therapy for OCD can help you:

• Understand the cycle between obsessive thoughts, anxiety and compulsions
• Reduce the importance given to intrusive or unwanted thoughts
• Challenge unhelpful beliefs about danger, responsibility and certainty
• Reduce checking, reassurance seeking and other compulsive behaviours
• Become more comfortable tolerating uncertainty
• Develop healthier ways of responding to anxiety and obsessive thoughts
• Feel less controlled by OCD in your everyday life