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Carrie Bock - By The Well Counseling

137. This One Thing Will Make OCD Worse Every Time

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie dives into a crucial yet often overlooked factor that can make OCD symptoms flare up. Discover how to recognize and address this challenge to better manage your OCD.

Episode Highlights:

  • What often makes OCD symptoms worse.
  • How to recognize this hidden trigger in your life 
  • Practical tips for managing this issue effectively.
  • Strategies for finding the right support and resources.

Episode Summary:

Today, we’re diving into a critical issue that exacerbates OCD every single time—stress. It’s something we need to recognize and learn to manage with self-compassion.

Why Stress Amplifies OCD

Stress is the one thing that will make your OCD worse every time. Whether it’s a positive stress like a job promotion or a negative one like a health issue, stress triggers OCD symptoms to morph and intensify. It’s crucial to recognize this connection and learn to mitigate stress to prevent OCD from taking over.

5 Tips to Mitigate Stress and Manage OCD

  1. Recognize and Be Compassionate: Understand what you’re going through and be kind to yourself. It’s okay if you’re not coping perfectly—God’s grace is sufficient, and acknowledging your struggles is the first step to healing.
  2. Exercise Regularly: Even if it’s just a 20-minute walk, moving your body can significantly reduce stress and improve your mood. Exercise has been shown to be as effective as antidepressants in many cases.
  3. Focus on What You Can Control: Accept that you can’t control everything, especially other people’s actions. Learn to let go and trust in God’s plan, knowing that you’re doing your best.
  4. Learn to Say No: It’s okay to decline opportunities that aren’t right for you in this season. Saying no to some things means saying yes to your well-being and to what truly matters.
  5. Ask for Help: Don’t hesitate to reach out to others when you’re struggling. Sharing your burdens allows others to support you in meaningful ways.

Stress can be overwhelming, but by applying these tips, you can take control and manage your OCD more effectively. Remember, you’re not alone in this journey—God is with you, and there’s hope for a more peaceful, abundant life.

Tune in for more:

123. Three Reasons You Don’t Prioritize Self-Care with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

Transcripts

Episode 137. There’s something that I have seen that makes OCD worse every single time. We need to be aware of it. We need to be on the lookout so that we can be self compassionate and also know how do we deal with it? How do we mitigate it? We’re gonna talk about that today.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

Our new website is up and running. I want you to check out all of my offerings, therapy offerings, as well as what we have going on with the podcast at karybach. com. If you really want to stay in touch with what’s going on definitely get on our email list so that you can be the first to be notified about certain things.

I’m going to be seeking to just kind of hang out with you guys once a month on Zoom. So once I have all of that squared away and scheduled we will be letting you know about it on via email. What’s the one thing that will make your OCD worse every single time? That is stress. Okay, when your stress goes up, your symptoms are going to go up.

Doesn’t matter what kind of mental health condition you have, this is the case, but it’s especially true with OCD. Part of the reason that is because OCD does this thing where it likes to morph. It likes to shift and change themes on you. You’re plugging along and you think, ah, things are going okay. And then some stressful life event happens, and OCD is like, Oh, hey, let me hop on that bandwagon and now throw in some other theme for you to be dealing with.

When we talk about stress, there are some things in our life that are considered, quote, positive stress. These are the type of things that we want to happen, okay? You get a job promotion, you move into a new house. Steve and I moved this year. Incredibly stressful. Like we did everything possible to make it as least stressful as possible.

It was still stressful. Like we took our time. We really, you know, had a long process of packing things up. We labeled, we did easy meals during the process. There was just so much, and it was still incredibly stressful. Getting married. It’s a joyous time. I mean, Getting married is a good thing, but it can be very stressful.

There’s a lot of logistics you’re trying to figure out and put in a row. Having a baby, you’re not sleeping as well, you’re eating maybe thrown a little off. All of these different things that are positive, even your kids sports schedules. If you have a kid that, you know, it’s really a high sports season for them, and you’re gone 2, nights a week, it What I’ve learned from parents is if you have one kid in sports, you’re probably gone about two to three times a week.

You have two kids in sports, you’re gone every night of the week. It’s just like hanging up, you know, sometimes Monday through Saturday is toast. These are things that you’re wanting to do, let’s say, and wanting to be involved in. So it’s positive stress, but we’ve still got to learn how to take care of ourselves, and how to factor in how to manage that stress, or reduce it as much as possible.

How can we mitigate it? And then you’ve got those positive stress things, but you then Negative stress happens to all of us at one point or another. You’ve got illness, whether it’s, you know, I’m sick right now getting over an illness that I got from my daughter that has kind of put me out of commission a lot this week.

It could be a chronic health issue that you’ve been dealing with. You can’t seem to get rid of it. You keep going to the doctor, this doctor and that doctor. And you may have that, or you may have a family member who’s dealing with health issues that you’re caregiving for. Caregiving can be a lot. You may experience something happenings at work.

You either lose your job, like unexpected layoff, write up, maybe your boss is just out to get you, doesn’t like you, or is trying to micromanage you in some way. Job stress is the real deal. I worked in a toxic work environment in the past. I know what that experience is like. I know what it’s like to be afraid of getting fired.

To the point where I threw up one night over it. And then I finally just said, I cannot let this affect me this way. And had to get to the point where I said, God is in control and if they fire me, they fire me. I can only do so much. I have done all that it is that I can do to please these people. And that is all I can do.

It’s not worth your health. Take it from me. If you have conflict in any of your close relationships, especially intimate relationship, like with a spouse, that can be highly stressful. If one person has their foot out the door, maybe you’re the person that has your foot out the door, that’s stressful, okay?

If you’re going through a situation in hard economic times, You don’t know how you’re going to put food on the table, clothing for your, you or your kids, housing. You can’t find the housing in your price range that you need. That’s, you know, a huge issue in today’s society. If you have a death of a loved one and you’re going through a grief and loss process, all of these things.

It can be stressful and take a toll on you. So I have come up with five tips that I want to give you today to mitigate stress. If you say, yes, I raised my hand on several of those different things, I mean, I can tell you in my own life, as far as getting married. Having a baby, having a family member with a chronic health issue, and going through grief and loss.

I went through all of those things in probably a three year period. It was a lot, okay? And so when you have multiple of these things going on and it’s compounded, here’s some ways that you can mitigate stress. Number one, recognize what you’re going through, how stressful it is, and go easy on yourself, okay?

Open yourself up to a sense of compassion. You’re not perfect, you’re not gonna be perfect, and I would say even you’re not gonna cope you. perfectly. Like, what does that mean? You’re not going to cope at 100 percent capacity. Maybe you feel like, Oh, I was doing so well at managing my day to day stress. I had a workout routine or I was putting healthy foods in my body.

I was meal planning and you were on a really good flow and you got thrown off by one of these unexpected health things that came up. You know, maybe you got sick. Maybe you had a job stress and all of a sudden they were wanting you to work 45 hours a week and you got thrown off your course. Be compassionate towards yourself.

I think sometimes when we sit down and we recognize, wow, I’ve got a lot going on. And this is something that I have to do for people. in therapy sometimes, just give them a reality check. Like you do realize what you’re telling me, right? Like you’ve been through some stuff and you’re here and you’re putting one foot in front of the other.

That says something, you know, sometimes you hear people that have been through a lot of trauma and I’m like, how did you make it to this point without dying? I don’t even know how you’re here. So just recognizing that God gives us this sense of, Resilience, and it’s by his grace and mercy that we have even made it as far as we have in this life.

I do not know how I would still be standing if it were not for the Lord. Just recognizing, like, it’s okay. That I’m not coping at 100 percent capacity. It’s okay that I have relapsed a little bit with my OCD and I’ve gotten sucked into some rituals and some routines that I normally would have said no to, but I’m going through this stress and it’s kicked up into high gear.

Just being compassionate with yourself. Tip number two is to exercise. I know that this can be hard sometimes because you’re thinking I’ve got so much going on I don’t have time to exercise. Find that 20 minutes to take a walk outside. Do a little bit of walking on your lunch break. Do a few squats when you first get up in the morning or some planks.

Do something, move your body, stretch before you go to bed. Just do something that’s really going to help your mind and your body. I’ve talked about this before, antidepressants and exercise have gone like head to head with each other in psychological studies. Whether the people were taking medication or not, the people that exercised always fared really well as far as their mood goes.

So exercise is really good for your mind and for reducing the level of stress and anxiety that we hold in our body. Tip number three for mitigating stress, this one’s so huge, recognize what is actually in your control. Okay, back to toxic work situation. I got written up over some stuff that was flat out lies, just gonna throw that out there.

Some of it was flat out lies and I realized I cannot control if these people are over here lying about what kind of work I’m doing. I am showing up. I am doing the very best of my ability. May not be the best at my job. But I am putting in the effort and I did care and I think that’s why it upset me so bad because I was like, man, I’m like, I really do care like about doing a good job.

It was not in my control. Some of the things that happened in that work environment, there were expectations that were put on me. It’s like, I don’t have control. control always on meeting those expectations because they had to do with other people were involved, right? So you can only do what you can do about a situation.

If you are working with other people and if you’re pulling your weight and they are not pulling their weight, there’s nothing that you can do about that. You’ve got to let it go. We can get super worked up over other people’s poor behavior. Not just in a work environment, but in family situations, people not doing what they need to do, not carrying their weight.

What you have to learn to say is, I’ve got to have grace. I’ve got to let some things go. I’ve got to set boundaries where necessary and healthy, but then that’s it. That’s all I can do is speak my piece, speak the truth and love, and move forward. You cannot control other people. You cannot make them do things they don’t want to do.

The problem that I see with OCD is it’s going to tell you that you can control some stuff that you can’t really control. It’s going to tell you if you jump through this hoop, or you seek that reassurance, or you research this, then you really can stay safe. Nope. Nope. Not in control of that. You can do all the googling you want and still get a health issue.

You can seek all the reassurance you want, and you can still be more confused than when you started. Don’t believe the lies the OCD is telling you. Number four, this goes along with setting boundaries. Don’t be afraid to say no. There are some things that I would really love to be doing right now. I can think of some volunteer work I’d love to get involved in.

I can think of some extra things that they would love for me to be doing at the church that I have been asked to do and I would love to do. However, I cannot do it all. I’ve had to realize that. Certain things have come up recently and just something in my spirit was like, no, I am not doing that. It’s not bad.

It’s a good thing, but it’s just not for me right now. I need to not get burnt out, not get overwhelmed. And some things are good things, but they’re not for this season. And if you’re in a season of stress and busyness and struggle, it’s okay for you to say no. It’s okay for you to say, man, that’s a great opportunity.

Thank you so much for thinking of me. It’s just not the right season for my family right now. Oh, hey, you want me to work on that project with you? Can we do that after soccer season is over? Is that okay? When we say no to some things, that means we’re saying yes to other things, even if that is yes to rest for this season, because you have a lot of stressful things going on, or if that is yes to taking care of yourself and giving yourself time.

time to reflect or journal or be with God, be in contemplation because you’re going through some emotional things right now. That’s okay. It’s okay to say no. Tip number five for mitigating stress is to ask for help. Other people cannot throw you a life preserver if they don’t know that you’re drowning.

I’m talking to myself on this one because this is one I’ve struggled with for a long time, asking for help. I would like everybody to think that Carrie has it going on over here and all her ducks are in a row. They are not, most of the time. God has shown me that I need to live in humility and allow other people to love me.

because I do have people in my life who do care about me and want to step in and help when needed. So I don’t need to be afraid to reach out and say, Hey, I’ve got this going on. Or, Hey, can you pick up my daughter? Because I’ve got to be over here dropping my husband off at this appointment. Can you watch my daughter for a couple hours so that my husband and I can get a much needed date?

It’s hard sometimes to be vulnerable. It’s hard to reach out for help. Sometimes you may not feel like you have the support system or you have people that you can ask. And I’ve definitely felt that at different points in life. or had those seasons that felt more lonely than others. But what I’ve noticed is usually there are people in our lives somewhere, even if you may not have talked to them in a little while, or it’s somebody that you haven’t taken the full time to cultivate the relationship.

We’re really worried sometimes about burdening people or being Too needy or too much. But if you are the kind of person that you’re going to go out of your way to help somebody when they need something, they’re going to know that about you and receive the relationship as reciprocal. You know, we can’t be asking all the time and not ever giving to others.

There has to be a balance there. Even if you don’t have a physical need or that someone can meet, I would still encourage you to share with other people how they can be praying for you too. That’s a huge one. Be vulnerable and let people know, hey, this is something that I am wrestling with God with. Even if you don’t give them all the details, you just say, Hey, I’ve been really stressed out with work or I’ve been just stressed out with the kids or a variety of different things going on in my life.

Please pray for me. That goes a long way and people will be willing to lift you up in prayer and love and support you. If you’re going through a period of stress right now, Just know that it’s not always going to be this way. You’re not always going to feel as stressed as you do right now. And hopefully, if you can put some of these tips into practice, it’ll help you get through this stressful season when your OCD is flaring up.

If there’s some way I can help and support you in this process, I would love to be able to do that for you. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show.

Christian Faith in OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

93. Incognito Christian Counselors with Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, Podcast Episode.

Join Carrie as she dives into an interesting conversation with Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT on Incognito Christian Counselors and the integration of faith into mental health counseling

Episode Highlights:

  • Why some counselors are hesitant to publicly identify as Christians.
  • How Christian counselors can provide evidence-based therapy while integrating faith and scripture.
  • Challenges of finding specialized treatment for conditions like OCD and navigating treatment outside of one’s faith.
  • Importance of asking questions and advocating for oneself in therapy.

Related links and Resources:

Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT

More Episodes to Listen to:

14. How to Find a Therapist Who is Right for You

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD, Episode 93! I’m Carrie Bock, your host, and I’m so glad you’re here with us today.

Today’s episode features a special guest: Ann Taylor McNiece, a licensed marriage and family therapist and the host of the Soul Grit podcast. Ann and I dive deep into the topic of integrating faith with mental health counseling, something we’re both passionate about.

Ann shares her journey of blending theology and psychology, drawing from her own experiences with depression and her early aspirations to combine faith with counseling. We tackle the challenges some therapists face when incorporating their faith into their practice, including the constraints of legal and ethical guidelines.

We discuss why some counselors may be reluctant to publicly identify as Christian and the fear of potentially alienating clients. We also explore how combining Christian principles with evidence-based therapies can be incredibly beneficial for those struggling with OCD and other mental health issues.

For more insights from Ann, be sure to check out her podcast, Soul Grit, and visit her website at soulgritresources.com. There, you’ll find her free e-course on Cognitive Behavior Therapy with Scripture and other valuable resources.

Thank you for tuning in! I hope this episode inspires and supports you as you integrate your faith with your mental health journey.

Explore Related Episode:

33. What is it Like to be a Counselor? Steve Interviews Carrie

Transcript

Welcome to Christian Faitn and OCD, Episode 93. I am your host, Carrie Bock, and I’m so glad that you are joining us today to listen to this show

Today on the show we have Ann Taylor McNiece, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist and podcast host of Soul Grit. I am happy to have her here to talk with us about the integration of faith and Counseling.

_____________

Carrie: Welcome to the show. I think that we share a similar passion in regards to integration of faith into mental health counseling, and we both went to seminary, different seminaries, but how did this become a passion of yours? 

Ann: I can actually remember the early years of college just kind of dreaming about this marriage of theology and psychology, and I was just starting to learn more about it. I’ve been a Christian my whole life, but I had just recently started to struggle with depression and had my first experience of counseling in my senior year of high school. And just from there, I started having this dream in my heart that more people need to be aware that these two things fit together. God created our minds and God created helpers that understand the mind and wanna help people and just reach their fullness of life to get away from things like anxiety, depression, and other common health problems that we see.

Carrie: This is so prevalent in the church. There’s so many people who are struggling with common mental health issues, anxiety, depression, even things in the church, people who are struggling with ADHD or autism. There’s so much that’s going on that a lot of times we don’t talk about it enough, and so I’m glad that we’re able to talk about it.

Our faith can be fully integrated. I like to say we can have all of Jesus and all of really good psychological teachings because everything points us back to God. 

Ann: If it’s something good and true and it works and it’s healthy, and that’s coming from God. Humans didn’t create that stuff. 

Carrie: Absolutely, and I think there’s so much more that obviously that God knows than we do about these things because he created our brain and our mind and knows all the intricacies of how everything works. Why do you think some counselors are hesitant to publicly say that they’re a Christian?

Ann: I think it depends if you really are a Christ follower because being a Christian can mean a lot of things. You’re in a different area of the country than I am in Southern California. It might mean something different than it means in the Bible Belt or the South, just to say you’re Christian.

It’s not a very good descriptor of what the person’s actually bringing to the table for one thing. And then the other part is that some therapists are unsure about what are the actual legal and ethical guidelines for bringing your faith into the counseling room. So some people might think, “Oh, I went to grad school. I learned how to be a counselor. I got my license. And I’m never supposed to talk about religion or spirituality or Jesus ever again in my professional context,” and I think sometimes we might get that even from public school kinds of mentalities or separation of church and state. The thing is, there’s nothing about State in my private practice of counseling.

I don’t really have those same guidelines, like a teacher or a politician might have to try to keep those things separate. But I think it comes from people not knowing what are the guidelines and how much can I share with all concerned that will it be ethical for me to share. Will this client feel like I’m proselytizing or trying to evangelize them instead of attending with empathy to their concerns that they’re bringing into the counseling room.

There’s another fear that counselors have just if I put out on my website that I’m a Christian counselor or if I have like a little Jesus cross or a fish or something on my business card to identify me as a counselor or maybe like a scripture reference or something like, Christians are going to know that I’m for them, but am I going to alienate all the other people? Then it comes from this mindset of if I don’t advertise or market myself to everybody. I’m not going to be able to fill my practice and then I’m gonna suffer a financial loss because I won’t have enough clients.

Carrie: I think that’s a huge one. Just in terms of how I was trained. Like if you were trained with really great faith integration, but then you’re also trained as a professional to see everyone regardless of what their needs are. You have to put aside what your belief system is in terms of working with the client from their belief system.

For a long time, I think I fell into what I’m titling this episode, the Incognito Christian counselor standpoint. I wasn’t open about my faith, and it’s actually this podcast that has helped me more than anything step into true authenticity of who I am in my marketing as a therapist, because I thought, well, I never really saw myself as a Christian counselor because sometimes when I think of that, I think of some person that’s opening up a Bible and is, Hey, let’s talk about this scripture and how it applies to your life and your situation.

There certainly are opportunities that I may bring certain things up or ask clients, are you familiar with this Bible story? Or that type of thing. Based off of what they’re saying. But it’s not as, I think formal, maybe as I viewed it.  When I came out with this podcast, I thought, this makes no sense. I have a very Christian name if you understand the Bible because my name is By The Well Counseling.  People who are familiar with the John 4 story are like, “Oh, well okay. She gets it. She has a Bible.” I did have that and then I would say a little something about that on my website. I might check that I was Christian on Psychology today, and I might have a verse at the bottom. But I didn’t really go into like, Hey, my faith is a big passion of mine and I really believe that we can integrate really well.

I think it’s definitely been a big shift in my practice over the last couple of years as to having more Christian clients or clients seek me out because I am a Christian, especially since having the podcast for the last two years. I do think that some people in the community, even other therapists, probably think, oh, well, we’re not going send certain clients to her if they’re not Christian. I have to say, that’s okay how they’re going to view me and I really can’t control that. I think we spend so much time trying to control how other people see us in all contexts, not just in a professional context. 

Ann: I think that the clients I want to see are the ones that are going to want to see me. It’s not so much like you said, bringing out your Bible and telling them what verses are going to apply to their situation, or let’s just sit down and pray about it. All of those things are good things to do.

Those kinds of interventions might find themselves more in a pastoral or biblical counseling setting or where licensed therapists, who, we have a state licensure that’s vetted us. We have done our 3000 hours, we’ve done all the things that we need to be clinical providers, we are going to bring all of that. But what’s gonna underlie all of this as our foundation is a shared value and a shared hope. When it comes down to, I’m doing cognitive behavioral therapy with somebody and they can’t get to that part where they need to create an alternative thought. I’m gonna say, okay, well if you can’t get to it, let’s ask God, what would God say about this? And we’ll find a scripture to that matches what they need to do. And it’s not because I am, well just read the Bible and that’s cover everything that you’re going through. That informs everything that I do as a professional counselor.

Carrie: Another reason I wanted to have this episode too is I think especially for our folks who are struggling with OCD, they have a hard time finding someone who has that training in OCD  evidence-based therapies and treatments, while also having the value systems of Christianity. Part of that is because a lot of the OC D treatment has to do with behaviorism, and that’s not that it’s directly in conflict with Christianity. I think it’s just a little bit different way of looking at the world and we see people as more than just higher evolved animals, is a way to say it, but which is a lot of behaviorism is based on those kind of ideas.

I’m curious, for you as a Christian, do you feel like you would ever see a counselor who wasn’t a Christian? Maybe if you had a certain diagnosis that you needed treating or as you were seeking out a certain type of therapy, and how would you navigate that if you would?

Ann: Well, I certainly want to leave room for. Some of us need really specialized treatment and some of us lived in parts of the country where it’s harder to find providers. Like I said, I’m in Southern California, probably an hour’s drive. I can find a specialist in whatever I wanna be specialized in. Right? But if you live in a different part of the country, especially if you’re seeking in-person therapy versus on a screen like we all did for the pandemic.

Sometimes you want a person that you can be present in the room with and you need them to have a specialization is going to help you break through something and that person may or may not be a believer. There are gonna be times when that is necessary, but for me personally, what I struggle with is depression.

That’s a general thing. Sometimes just figuring out next steps in life, or I might go to marriage counseling or something like those things that I’m dealing with, I’m going to want to have Christian counselor because I know there are people who have faith in God who have similar values and similar understanding worldview that have the training that I need to get through the things that I’m dealing with. I think you have to allow room for both when you can see a Christian counselor and when there’s something that just needs specialists, go ahead and do that, and you just make the best of it.

Carrie: It’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to ask your therapist what their value system is. They may or may not want to answer that for you, just kind of depending on how they work, but it’s fully within your right to ask where someone is coming from or what type of treatment methods they use.

Know that you’re in an empowered place regardless of where you find yourself in treatment. I’m thinking that we may have a friends that listen to the show that have had to go to an in-patient treatment, or they’ve had to go to an IOP treatment, and it’s not something that’s covered by their insurance.

It’s probably not going to be a Christian-run facility most likely talking to the counselors about what your values are, these are things that are very important to me and I wanna make sure that we’re utilizing them in counseling in a healthy way, and I wanna make sure that you kind of understand where I’m coming from and what’s important to me. And ethically, whether your counselor is a Christian or not, they have to respect that. 

Ann: Exactly. What I really think that God is faithful in this area, that when you’re in a really bad place with your mental health condition, and you need to have some of these higher level of arrangement is made for you like he’s gonna be faithful.

Just be surprised that there’s going to be another patient there, or there’s going to be a nurse, or a therapist or a behavioral tech or something like that. You’re not going to know at first, but then you’re going to find out that person also loves God. And then God’s going to put those pieces together for you so that you can have an experience of getting the healing that you need with that kind of high level of specialty. He is also going be right there saying, “I see you. I know what you need.” As you move down from the higher level of care back into just regular weekly therapy with your therapist, like maybe that might be an opportunity to say, okay, I learned all these kind of technical skills in my IOP or whatever it might be, but now can you help me figure out how I integrate those things that I learned with what I know to be true in the Bible and what God’s doing in my life. And that’s a really good launching point for the next phase.

Carrie: Absolutely. I really like how you worded that. I do think that God is always with us in walking us through situations and just giving us those little glimpses of like, “Hey, I’m here for you. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be able to make it through. This is one of the reasons that you started your podcast because of your own mental health struggles. 

Ann: I think I got into counseling because of my own mental health struggles. But I started the podcast because I saw this need in my community. And yes, it’s Southern California, but my particular community is a little bit smaller and so I was looking for people that I could refer patients to when they were requesting a Christian counselor and I was either full or didn’t take their insurance or whatever, and I would reach out to people and a couple of times I got emails back that would say something like, yes, I’m personally a Christian, but I don’t offer Christian counseling. Why not? That just didn’t make sense to me.

I had to go back and think through all of those reasons why a person who had no faith in Jesus wouldn’t want to bring that into their professional setting. Carrie, you and I both had a seminary background. We had classes that specifically taught us, okay, you’ve had bible and theology. You’ve had clinical classes, here’s how you put them together, and here’s how you bring that into your career, into the room with your clients, but a lot of people who were trained either in a secular university or some other kind of program didn’t have that advantage. Maybe they just don’t know how to do it and don’t have the confidence to do that. I started creating resources that would help them learn how to integrate their personal faith into the practice that they already know how to do.

They’ve already licensed counselors or pre-licensed, and they want to be able to do good work clinically, but then there’s this whole part of themselves that they are leaving out. You just said when you started the podcast, you became more authentic in your work because now you’re bringing in this part of you. I wrote an e-course that was my 2020 pandemic project over the summer. 

Carrie: We all had one. 

Ann: Yes, I put out the E-course and then I thought, you know what? People need an easy on-ramp to find out just to get their toes in the water with this idea about integration. My podcast is for people who do this kind of work like you and I do, but also for people who are just interested in mental health and they want to know, “Is this okay that I’m a Christian and I want to do this therapy thing?”

I’ve done different special episodes on things like brain spotting or transcranial magnetic stimulation or different things where I want to get a Christian perspective on all those clinical things that are out there so I can understand more. I can get the help I need and I can pass on this information to other people that I see in my world or in my church that are needing the help as well.

Carrie: That’s awesome. I think there’s a really, a lack of conversation surrounding these things, which is one of the reasons that I started my podcast too. I had a blog for like a hot second and I realized writing’s a lot of work.

Ann: Yes, same .

Carrie: It’s easier for me to talk, so I decided, maybe podcasting route because it was a lot of work to try to get all these blog posts up there, and then I was like, is anybody rating this thing? But I think this is great. I’ve really definitely looked for a lot of resources and people who are bringing to the table really solid clinical skills and good Christian counseling.

I hope that people will check out your podcast, Soul Grit, and you’ve had a wide variety of episodes on there, different topics. It’s awesome. 

Ann: Yes, Carrie’s going to be on the podcast too. 

Carrie: Woohoo! Towards the end of every episode, I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time of hope that you have from God or another person.

Ann: God has done a lot of amazing things like actual miracles in our family story. I’ll just share where I am right now. I actually had a stroke two months ago and that was very unexpected cuz I’m only 40. I exercise most days. I eat healthy. I don’t have diabetes. I don’t smoke or drink.

I don’t have any risk factors, and all of a sudden I found myself in the hospital having suffered a stroke just in November. I didn’t know what that meant or what my life would look like, and it turns out it could have been a lot worse. I have all of my faculties available. I can walk, I can talk, I can think I can do cognitive tasks.

In the meantime, God had to remove me from a lot of the things as a professional mom, wife, all the roles in ministry. December could be like, this is the big time, right? , the week before December started this past year. God just said, no, actually your job is to lay on the couch. And I thought, but God, I’m the mom and I’m the podcaster and I’m the therapist and I lead a small group and I have to do holidays for my family and all those things.

God just made me rest and taking me through right now a journey of figuring out what is really important. And what is foundational? Do I have big ideas and big [00:18:00] goals for my practice or my e-course or my podcast or my other things that do in ministry or family, whatever. But come down to take care of yourself, rest, read the Bible, and spend time with the Lord. Be there with your family, work on your marriage, eat the right food. It’s come down to just very foundational basic things, and I’ll say, this is why, this is my story of hope because right now I don’t see what the result of that is gonna be, but I really have this sense that God has me in this place of the lane, a solid foundation.

Not that I wasn’t solid in my belief in God, or that I didn’t have a good marriage or anything before. But it’s like he’s laying this new layer of foundation that I need for whatever that launch is in the next season of life, and I have no idea what that might look like, but I have hope that if he’s asking me to slow down and rest right now and take care of these things, that means he has something for me then that’s gonna be worth it when I follow him in an obedience to that.

Carrie: Yes. It’s so hard for us in our cultural context to slow down and to rest, but it’s definitely so needed and so important, so I’m glad that God’s working with you on that. Have you kind of had a lot of reflections on just the sense of Sabbath in the Bible and what that really means to rest?

Ann: What’s really funny is in October I did a whole series on rest and ceasing from busyness and Sabbath. That was what the whole, the podcast in the fall was about. Then I had just moved into a new series that I was doing about the body and what God has to say about the body and how our body impacts our mental health and things like that.

It was almost like God said, “Well, you’re doing good work. I see the work that you’re doing, but I’m going to make this really real for you in short order. 

Carrie: Yes, He did. It’s like when the pastor has to preach the sermon to themselves before they give it to the congregation. That’s what they say. They’re like, I had to learn this for myself. Awesome. Tell us where people can find you and we’ll put links in the show notes too. 

Ann: My website is soulgritresources.com, and that’s where you can find the e-course. You can get links to the podcast, the blog that I used to write and for your listeners, I’m assuming a lot of people that listen to your podcast are interested in things like those evidence-based practices.

I have a freebie that pops up. It’s called Cognitive Behavior Therapy with scripture, and I’ll walk you through how to use the scripture to replace those thoughts that you’re needing some help with once you identify them, so they can find that there. I’m also on Instagram at Soul Grit Resources. 

Carrie: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here today. 

65. ACT Therapy for Anxiety and OCD with Ingrid Ord, psychotherapist and author

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie interviews Ingrid Ord, a therapist and author of ACT with Faith, about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). They discuss how ACT helps individuals accept difficult emotions and take action toward their values, particularly in managing anxiety and OCD.

Episode Highlights:

  • The power of accepting anxiety and fear instead of avoiding them, leading to personal growth and progress.
  • ACT’s role in OCD treatment, helping individuals confront anxiety without relying on compulsive behaviors.
  • How ACT helps people separate their values from their obsessions, reducing guilt and shame in OCD.
  • The connection between ACT and Christian faith, offering a deeper understanding of life’s struggles through God’s promises.

Episode Summary:

Today, we’re diving into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with Ingrid Ord, a therapist and author. ACT is gaining traction in OCD treatment, and I’m excited to share what I learned from Ingrid. ACT emphasizes accepting discomfort and taking committed action, even when anxiety or fear tries to stop you.

Ingrid shared that she gravitated toward ACT after trying other methods like CBT and REBT. ACT felt gentler and more in line with her values, making it a better fit for her and her clients.

In ACT, we accept the anxiety we feel instead of avoiding it. For example, if you’re anxious about a job interview, ACT helps you recognize that the anxiety is tied to your values—like wanting to make a good impression—and encourages you to act despite the anxiety. This approach is particularly helpful for OCD, where compulsions and avoidance only feed the anxiety.

ACT also highlights the importance of connecting with your values. For someone with OCD, recognizing that their obsessions don’t align with their true values—such as harming others—can help reduce guilt and shame.

For those of us with faith, ACT’s principles align well with trusting God’s plan. Ingrid and I discussed how faith can strengthen acceptance, especially when we’re dealing with difficult situations like chronic pain or anxiety. Even when we don’t understand why we’re struggling, leaning into God’s grace can help us find meaning and strength in our challenges.

I hope this conversation helps you rethink how you approach therapy and empowers you to accept your struggles while still taking steps forward.

Related Links and Resources:

Ingrid Ord

ACT with Faith

Transcript

If you’ve been a fan of the show for a long time, you know that we love to discuss different types of therapy here. I could be helpful for people who are struggling with anxiety or OCD. I like to do that because you always hear people say, “Eh, I tried therapy. It didn’t work for me”. Did therapy not work because it wasn’t the right modality for you? Did therapy not work because you didn’t have a great relationship with your therapist? There are so many variables there that we could die suck. 

Today on this show, we are talking with Ingrid Ord, who is a therapist and author of ACT With Faith. ACT is a type of therapy that we’re going to be talking about today. And that stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. If you want the long name, this wasn’t a therapy I knew much about. So, it was interesting to learn from Ingrid. And I know it’s a therapy that’s being incorporated more and more in OCD treatment. I hope you enjoy this interview.

Ingrid, I believe that therapists choose modalities like therapy that align with them personally and professionally. So I’m curious: how did you become so interested in acceptance and commitment therapy, also called ACT?

Ingrid: I’ve been working for a number of years, right? The modality I was in before I went to CBT and REBT was client-centered therapy, which fit me very well. REBT, Rational, Emotive, Behavior, Therapy. And it can be quite very proactive, and I found that quite hard. Then I found ACT, and suddenly, there was a therapy that did everything I’d been training up until that point. But allowed a much softer, gentler approach to actually being in the client’s space and not pulling them into your space. 

Carrie: REBT is pretty confrontational.

Ingrid: It’s very confrontational, and you have your disputations. It works really well. They were male lawyers.

Carrie: Certain populations might be necessary for us.

Ingrid: Certain populations. The thing with ACT is that it seems to work at the cold front. It’s one of the few therapies I’ve found that when the patient or the client actually needs it, it works for them. 

Carrie: Okay. So, tell us a little bit about what ACT therapy entails. 

Ingrid: Well, very much as the name says, within the acceptance part, it’s about willingly accepting that we have experiences that we don’t want and going into the experience. And being with it because these experiences invariably tell us something very important about our values. If I’m anxious about something, it’s probably because it’s something that there’s something in there that’s very important to me. So, if I’m anxious about meeting someone, it could be that it’s very important to me to make a good impression on this person. And why is it important to me? Maybe I’m envisaging a future relationship, a job, or something like that. It’s important to be within the experience itself. It’s tempting not to want to be there, to distract ourselves, and to all the denial stuff. And so the link between accepting what we’ve got in the moment and committing ourselves to taking action will take us in the direction of our values. Never mind what’s going on. What’s very attractive to me? 

Carrie: So there’s a sense of I’m accepting that I have anxiety about maybe going to a job interview because I want to look good or I really want a new job, but even though I’m anxious, I’m still going to work through that to the point where I’m committed to saying, I’m still going to put myself out there for this opportunity. I’m still going to the interview, show up, and do my best. 

Ingrid: Yes. So you take public speaking is a common problem with many people often, you know, seen this done in, in workshops and I do it myself is to acknowledge to the people there, how anxious I am, but I’m here because this is very important to me putting this across is a very important thing. And so I brought my anxiety was me, and I’m doing it anyway. 

Carrie: That’s good. I imagine that you’ve seen that it can help people with anxiety work through avoidance because avoidance feeds that cycle of anxiety and worsens everything. 

Ingrid: No, yes. I have a very dear friend in the app community, Robin Molson. She showed me in one of the first workshops. It’s a series of concentric circles. We’re right in the beginning of the circle, is what you are not wondering. And then the next circle will be what you do to avoid it. And then the next circle will be the results of what you’re doing to avoid it. And then there’s another biggest circle, the results of the results. So you end up with a little problem in the middle and the huge amount of consequences from actually avoiding taking action and sitting, you know, doing what you needed to do, whatever it is that you need to do that you’re anxious about.

Carrie: I’m curious about this in terms of OCD. Where people are taking action, but they’re doing things that they don’t want to be doing. They’re engaging in compulsions, trying to get out of repetitive thought patterns. What would ACT say about that? 

Ingrid: Well, one of the first things within there is the good old exposure exercises that you do and help the person to expose themselves to the situation so that they actually feel the anxiety. OCD is a specialized sort of area in that not that you have to be specialized, but you need to realize that the obsessions and the compulsions are there in order not to feel the anxiety. So you help the person go backward in the process to hopefully not do the compulsion or let the obsession go. And then, they will feel the anxiety and expose themselves to the feeling of the anxiety as being something totally normal. It’s going to happen. 

You have anxiety and are doing all these things to stop yourself from feeling anxiety. That is totally normal, but now it’s all become a big problem on its own.

So we need to unpick that take you backward so that you see that you actually can feel the anxiety. And live and get on with things, and it goes away. It always amazes me how people are so amazed that it goes away that you will stop thinking about this. You will, and it will go away if you stop listening to it and arguing with them.

Carrie: Right. And I think sometimes, in OCD treatment, that first step is really developing an awareness of how this plays out in a person’s life. And then being able to separate, like, I am not my OCD. I’m dealing with OCD.

Ingrid: Oh, yes.

Carrie: But it’s not my character. I may have these obsessions about hurting someone, but that’s not my value system. My value system is in loving people and caring for people. And that’s been shown through their behavior. 

Ingrid: Yes, absolutely. And it’s strange that you should mention that about, you know, not me and my values system. Very often that is a factor within OCD is that things are occurring, obsessions, compulsions that are totally in opposition to what their value systems are, which, of course, creates an immense amount of guilt and shame and so on, and actually help the person to understand that because it’s in your value system. That’s why you have these. The very fact that you’re so afraid of that means you’re going to have the obsession of the compulsion. 

Carrie: And we’ve talked about this before on the show, I think in your relationship to scrupulosity that people.

Ingrid: Yes.

Carrie: Those who are more spiritual and who have a connection to God are more likely to struggle with scrupulosity if they have OCD. I think that I can really see how this would be helpful for people with that sense of, there’s say, acceptance over the issue. And then you even said something earlier about taking it along with you. Can you talk with us a little bit more about that? Cause I know that that’s also a principle.

Ingrid: I often use the metaphor of a backpacker over the shoulder bag and say, look, you’ve got this thing, and it’s stuck to you, and it’s not going to go away. It’s like one of those magnetic games: as you move, it’s going to move with you. So instead of spinning off, trying to push it away, put it in your backpack, put it in your sling bag, and go and do what you want anyway because it won’t leave you.

So go ahead and do it. And it really helps to visualize it as well. So sometimes, I’ve had somebody visualize a little purple man who was giving her absolutely. I guess you should put them in the bag about herself, esteem, and all arresters and take him with you. And, of course, she must always be careful not to disrespect the mind. You’re not showing disrespect for the mind because the person needs to know your mind is doing its job. It’s just doing it in a bit of a weird way right now. 

Carrie: It’s trying to protect you.

Ingrid: We always need to be careful not to undermine the mind’s job and get the person to feel that their mind is somehow defective. That’s actually a very important part of actors. There is nothing wrong with you. You’ve got problems because there’s everything right with you. 

Carrie: Oh, wow. This is a very interesting reframe for people. 

Ingrid: Isn’t it wonderful?

Carrie: It takes off that shame layer, really.

Ingrid: Yes. And the fear of, you know, am I losing it? I always joke that the least funny joke ever is of all the things I’ve lost in life. I miss my mind the most. 

Carrie: I’m curious for you: how does ACT therapy align with faith in God and biblical teaching?

Ingrid: Actually, that’s a very close fit because the stitching with the thing I’m trying to avoid and actually sitting with it and willingly accepting it is much easier as a Christian because I have got the added strength of grace without being a Christian. I willingly accept that struggling against this thing will make me worse, but that’s just pure straight logic, and I learn it throu

Transcript

Carrie: Hope for anxiety and OCD, episode 65. If you’re new to the show, I’m your host, Carrie Bock. And we are all about using shame, increasing hope, and developing healthier connections with God and others.gh experience, and that’s how it works. But now that I’m a Christian, I know that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord. And so whatever I’m experiencing is somehow going to work towards my good. And if I am in it and with it and thinking about God’s promises, you know what He has promised me here, it increases my faith. 

Carrie: Everything is purposeful. I think one thing as Christians that we fight against sometimes. Is, you know, okay, God, why am I going through this? Can you please take it away so that I don’t have to deal with it anymore because it’s uncomfortable and it’s painful. And I know that you have the power to do that. And instead of, like you were saying, really leaning in and saying, okay, there must be some purpose that this experience is here.

Ingrid: Yes.

Carrie: And God has allowed it in my life for some reason or another, you know, maybe it’s to help somebody down the road. That’s going to be going through a similar experience; maybe it’s to grow my character internally, and I could see how this therapy could help you lean into that. 

Ingrid: Sometimes it’s to help me to learn something that I really need to learn. You’re like recently after I tell you at the end, but we’ve been living on a boat, and I tend to live in my head, but you can’t when you’re on a boat, and I’ve seen some many beautiful things and outside that I wouldn’t have been part of. Cause that would have been busy in my hand. 

Carrie: I know for me right now, I’m dealing with some chronic back pain related to my pregnancy. It’s taught me so much about many different things, but really relying on God, understanding my limitations, and having compassion for my clients with chronic pain. I think that it’s not over yet. So, I think there are probably still more things that I will learn or somehow will grow from this experience of going through it. 

But it is hard to accept when you’re in the middle of it. You know, it’s like, I can take my back pain with me to exercise and recognize that I don’t feel like exercising because I’m in pain. But when I start to do the stretching and the yoga and the things that I know will be good for me and the core exercises, I start to feel better. And I know that what I’m doing is not exacerbating anything. It’s trying to help the other muscles support my back and support. So I can see that in what we’re talking about today.

Ingrid: And would you say that it would then help you with empathy was chronic pain patients who sometimes seem to be quite childish, or it helps to have empathy with that to say, I know it feels really, really, really hard. 

Carrie: Sure. Have you seen in terms of biblical characters that you’ve studied how they may have accepted a situation and then acted based on it?

Ingrid: One of the things that mean a lot to me is the three Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, being thrown in the fire. And they said,” I think it was never that our God could save us from the fire, but even if he doesn’t, we still weren’t worshipping here.” That’s been a lot to me. There’ve been a few occasions in my life where, you know, you’re up against it, and it’s like, do this or else. And even if God doesn’t save me. So that’s one and the other one, really his job, even though he slays me when I trust him.

Carrie: Yes.

Ingrid: I struggle to get through this without getting emotional. But there’ve been very, very hard times in my life where that’s resonated in my head that God, I don’t know what you’re doing. And it feels like this is killing me, but I trust you. 

Carrie: Tell us a little about the book you wrote, “ACT With Faith.”

Ingrid: Well, I wrote it initially. The audience I chose was non-Christian therapists because I believe that there are many out there who are highly competent and would be very willing to work with Christians. With their own belief because, you know, ACT has a pragmatic Trist criteria which states that whatever the client believes is the truth in that room at that time. So even with a non-Christian therapist, Christian clients’ truths are what’s important. 

So, I thought I’d put out there what Christian truth is in terms of the six ACT processes or the six major processes lined in ACT. So, the therapists could relate process by process to various aspects of Christians’ beliefs. And I also wanted to give them eight for their Christian clients. So I put in a whole lot of appendices, which a client hands out, but if there’s something they don’t understand, like grace, they can hand it to their clients, and their clients can see how it relates to the whole ACT process.

Carrie: I like that a lot. Who has been resonating with the book, or have there been other people as well that have picked up on it, maybe clients that have read it and resonated with it or a Christian therapist?

Ingrid: I found it actually at a wide range of people because many clients have resonated with it. And people who are not Christians. People have come to me to say, “How can we adapt this for Muslim clients?” or I am trying to help and explain to them that the way I work is to say if I have a Muslim or Hindu or another religion, we have a religious book, and this is what it says. And I’m sure there are some things similar to this in your book. Can we see if we can find it? And there is something like if we’re dealing with marriage or relationship issues or whatever. People who are Christians who are not Christians

Carrie: That’s awesome.

Ingrid: In a very wide range of people. 

Carrie: Towards the end of every podcast. I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person.

Ingrid: Kind of alluded to this, but in 2018, my husband and I both felt that God was indicating to us to leave South Africa and return to the UK. The unfortunate part about it was that we would have nothing because of, you know, exchange rates, etcetera. Various factors meant that we would arrive here was nothing. We have about, so we’ve lived on the boat. It wasn’t supposed to be for three or four years, but that has been that, and it’s been very hard. The summers are beautiful, of course. And that’s what I was alluding to earlier with, you know, at being outside, seeing the nature it’s beautiful. But winters are tough, and we applied for housing, and it’s taken a very long time; we were approved in June, and it’s been hanging on hanging on. And today we got the large vacation, the house we love is ready, we can move it next week. 

Carrie: That’s awesome. That’s really beautiful. It’s hard to wait on those types of things, but praise God.

Ingrid: It’s very hard, it’s very hard to wait, and that’s been what I was, you know, about Joe, and I’ve been very ill on the boat at times, just saying to the Lord, “Okay, I know you have this in hand, I know you have it in half.” It takes you a bit longer than order a life.

Carrie: Yes.

Ingrid: I know we are both very excited about that. 

Carrie: It’s really being able to trust that he’s going to take care of things.

Ingrid: And, of course, deal. But you know, we’ve had to do quite a lot of, you know, applying and sorting and working and, so we do our bit.

Carrie: Sure.

Ingrid: But God is there, and he’s in control. And he knows exactly, and we couldn’t have chosen if I’d had to draw a little cottage that I would love to be in. I couldn’t have done anything more beautiful than what we’ve actually got.

Carrie: I’m so excited for you to be able to move into your place. And thank you so much for having this conversation about ACT with us. We’ll put links to your website and the book in case people want to learn more.

Ingrid: Great. Thanks, Carrie. Nice talking to you. And I hope the rest of your pregnancy goes well or you don’t have a bad backache. 

Carrie: Thank you. Thank you.