What is OCD?
OCD can involve intrusive thoughts, images, urges, or fears followed by rituals meant to reduce anxiety. At Westwood Institute, treatment focuses on helping patients face feared triggers while resisting compulsions in a structured, supported way.
Common signs and symptoms
- Contamination fears and washing rituals
- Checking, counting, repeating, or arranging
- Intrusive taboo, harm, religious, or sexual thoughts
- Reassurance seeking and mental review
- Avoidance that shrinks school, work, or family life
How Westwood Institute treats it
- Exposure and Response Prevention with careful hierarchy building
- Four-Step Cognitive Behavioral Self-Treatment strategies
- Family guidance to reduce accommodation
- Medication consultation when appropriate
- Intensive treatment for severe or treatment-resistant cases