Tag: ICBT for OCD

Today we’re talking about how do you remain hopeful when OCD treatment in the past has failed. Welcome, OCD warriors, to the Christian Faith and OCD podcast, where we are all about reducing shame and stigma of struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories, and replacing uncertainty with faith as you develop practical tools for greater peace.

I’m Carrie Bock, Christ follower, wife, mom, and licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. I pray you are blessed by today’s episode. Let’s face it, we’ve all tried something new that hasn’t worked out, whether that was the strategy on how to meal plan, how to organize your home, new fitness or diet program that you tried that you were really excited about, hopeful it was gonna change your life.

Maybe it was a new parenting program you got involved in, and then things just seemed to crash and burn and didn’t work out in the end. It can be really hard to restart a-anew when something has failed. I know for me, in my own personal counseling journey, it took me a while to find a counselor that I really gelled with, somebody that I felt like was empathetic towards me.

I went to a particular counselor at one point, and she was just very cold, very judgmental over my present situation, and I had explained to her that I had had some negative counseling experiences in the past when I tried to seek help, and there wasn’t really empathy for how hard it was for me to try again.

Fortunately, I kept trying until I found a really great therapist that helped me when I was struggling with some work and home things towards the end of my first marriage, and then really walked me– I was glad that I already had her in place, and she helped walk me through my divorce process, which was very traumatic for me, and I talked about that way, way back on the first episode, what God brought me through in that situation.

But I’m glad that I didn’t give up, and I’m glad that I didn’t stop and say, “Well, maybe therapy is…” Obviously, I believe it was a good thing because I was a therapist at the time, but I’m glad I didn’t say, “Well, maybe there’s just not someone out there for me,” or, “Maybe I just can’t get the help that I need.”

When you’re trying to get help for a mental health issue, something not working out is even more devastating because it’s so vulnerable to open yourself up and to try to get that help, and then to essentially have hope feel like it’s just dashed. It’s harder, I feel like, to recover from that. In the OCD space, people are just desperate for answers due to the high amount of suffering, and maybe you’ve even been through something like an intensive outpatient program.

Maybe you’ve gone to a residential program, and you just didn’t feel like you got the full results that you were needing. So how do you remain hopeful after an experience like that? Obviously, you’ve invested a lot of time, mental, emotional energy, money. These things are not cheap that we’re talking about.

Out- intensive outpatient programs, even with insurance, these things are not cheap. And it’s easy for you to get in this space of feeling just totally defeated. And then OCD likes to come in and say, “Well, see, you’re just too broken to get help.” And these things are lies that I want you to be able to identify.

Some other thoughts you might have, that means there’s something really wrong with you. OCD may even tell you, “Well, the OCD program couldn’t fix you, so see, there’s more here than just OCD.” And I don’t know. There may be different disorders that you’re dealing with that haven’t been addressed that might need to be looked at comprehensively.

Maybe there are some medical things going on that haven’t been explored. It’s hard to know sometimes, and it’s hard to tease those different things out about what you might actually be needing. You may start obsessing about treatment or about finding the exact right path. I know I definitely have talked to many people in this scenario.

They’ve spoken with me about the Empowered Mind course and said, “Is this really gonna help someone like me? How do I know?” We’ve been working, and I think I need to update our webpage a little bit, but there is a thirty-day money back guarantee on that program Just so that you know if that’s something that you’re thinking about.

And we put that on there a little while ago because we started to hear such good results from people that were going through it. And I said, “Hey, why not make it a little bit more risk-free for individuals that want to check that out?” So just so you know, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. We haven’t had to refund anybody as of yet.

Knock on wood, hopefully, we won’t have to do that. There’s so much great information, even just on how OCD works and understanding it in your own experience. It’s a really valuable opportunity and has helped so many people. But it’s understandable when people come to me and they say, “I don’t know if this is gonna work for me because I’ve tried this, this, this, and this.”

So if you’re confused about what the next step is for you in terms of your OCD recovery journey, just know that it’s okay and that you’re not alone, that a lot of people go through this. Progress is not always linear. You may have had stressful life experiences happen, such as a grief and loss experience.

Maybe you had a huge job transition or a move and things were going pretty well, but then whatever happened or the life stressors have really activated OCD more in your life. Just know that that’s very common. And so where maybe you felt like, “Okay, things were pretty functional and I was doing okay before,” what I’ve noticed a lot of times is that people don’t get help until it really starts impacting their functioning and they somewhat hit a wall where they say, “I can’t keep living like this anymore.”

I would encourage you, if you know OCD is part of your story, is to not wait until it gets super bad or super loud. Go ahead and get the skills. Go ahead and learn the things that you need to learn in order to handle it when it’s at a much more manageable level. That’s gonna serve you better if things do get worse later due to stress.

Also, obviously, anything that you can do to help reduce your stress is going to help you in your OCD recovery process, whether that’s exercise, connecting with friends and in community. And obviously, some of these things take time and practice. Getting into some type of like meditative, deep breathing, like being able to relax your body.

All of those skills are really helpful to have to just manage day-to-day life stress that we all have to deal with, regardless of whether or not you have OCD. When something fails, I wanna talk with you about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is more stuck in this all or nothing.

Either I’m good at something or I’m not. Either something worked or it was a complete failure. Whereas a growth mindset says, “You know what? There were some things that didn’t work out. How can I learn from this?” Or, “How can I grow into this? How can I look at where I’m at right now and not just focus on the deficits, but focus on the strengths?”

There may have been things that you picked up through some of these past therapies, whether self-help workbooks, whatever it is that you’ve tried. There may have been some gains that you had. By focusing on those and then moving forward, you can kind of identify, okay, what has worked and what hasn’t worked and why.

Unfortunately, of all the mental health disorders out there that I’ve worked with, I have never seen a population so underserved as the OCD community It’s really heartbreaking because so many have been told by therapists, “Oh, yeah, I can see you for the OCD. Oh, yeah, I can work with you on that.” It’s really important that you dig a little bit deeper and ask for a little bit more information before you proceed.

If you are educating your therapist on what scrupulosity is, and you have scrupulosity, they are not equipped to treat you. You need to find someone who has the tools and skills that you need in order to be able to help you. That is really crucial. So I’d like to give you a four-step process on how to remain hopeful when your past OCD treatment has failed.

You’ve tried talk therapy, you’ve tried biblical therapy, you’ve tried talking to your pastor about it, you’ve tried deliverance or healing prayers, and you still feel stuck. Number one, as we talked about a little bit before in terms of that growth mindset, I want you to look at what have been the gains.

Now, this may be really hard for you to see, but I think it’s an important first step. There’s a book called The Gap and the Gain. This is a great book. It’s really more of a business coaching-type book, but I believe that it can be applied definitely to many areas of our life. This idea that the gap is the distance between where you are and where you actually want to be, kind of this ideal destination that you’re trying to get to.

That’s the gap. The gain is kind of measuring where you are now versus how far you’ve come. Like, how far have you come from in the last five years or in the last 10 years? So what have been the things that, over this OCD recovery journey, what have been the gains? Maybe you have shifted, and you don’t feel so ashamed about your OCD anymore or about talking about it.

Maybe you’ve been able to open up with a few trusted friends or close family members about what you’re dealing with. Maybe there has been some shame reduction through some talk therapy, even though the therapy itself didn’t help with the OCD. Maybe just evaluating your life, you’ve had some gains in relationships.

Maybe there’s been some repairs that have happened or some forgiveness after hard conversations. Maybe you’ve accomplished something really important, like finishing a degree program, for example. Maybe you’ve had children. I don’t know, what is it that– how have you learned and grown over this process?

Maybe you feel like you’ve become more dependent on God through dealing with OCD. So where are the gains at? And this is important because if you know that you’ve experienced these positive gains from some of these things, then you have the encouragement to know that you can continue to move forward and continue to have progress and gains as part of your story.

So by measuring backwards, I’ve talked about this in my email, so if you’re not on our weekly newsletter, please go to carriebock.com and hop on it. I did a whole email on measuring backwards and looking at my own life and how that has shown up for me. But that’s also a concept from The Gap and The Gain, so shout out to that book again.

But this measuring backwards and really looking at where you’ve come from and the progress that you’ve experienced, that encourages you as you move forward to say, “Hey, there’s hope for me here.” If I’ve gotten through this hard thing in my life, I always somewhat go back a little bit to birthing my daughter.

I had my daughter naturally, and some people are like, “Does that win you an award?” Like, no, maybe not, but it does in my own mind, because if I go through physical pain or I had a kidney stone and the whole time is very painful, very uncomfortable, like, I birthed a human. I birthed a child. It’s okay. I can get through this.

It’s really hard, and it’s really painful. The very disappointing part of the kidney stone is, like, there’s no child at the end. At least when you give birth, you know, there’s this gigantic reward of going through all that pain. You have your child. But kidney stone, you’re just like, “Oh, great, that’s out of me now.

I’m so happy I no longer have that in my body.” I hope I don’t ever have to go through that experience again. Thankfully, that was many years ago, and I drink a lot of water, so hopefully will avoid future kidney stones if you know on that one. If you don’t, you just pray you never have to go through it.

But for you, my point is, what is that thing that you go back to and you say, “You know what? I did the hard thing, and so if I did the hard thing here, I can do the next hard thing there.” If you can go back and say, “You know what? God got me through this really stressful life experience that I had. I know He’s gonna get me through this really hard season that I’m going through right now,” and that’s huge.

That’s what faith is, saying, “Hey, I don’t know how all this is gonna work out. I don’t know how I’m gonna get to a better place with my OCD recovery, but, God, you’re bigger, and I know that you can walk with me through it.” Number two, I want you to really look at what’s worked, what hasn’t worked. Was it a lack of training from your therapist in evidence-based practices such as ERP or ICDT?

Did you have a secular therapist, but you didn’t feel like they understood or empathized with your faith struggles? Did you have a Christian therapist that was kind of pointing you back to the Bible but didn’t necessarily have the OCD-specific tools? Was it a situation where you started but just didn’t follow through?

I’m not trying to be hard or, or step on any toes here, but maybe you got going and you went for a few sessions. Maybe you went for five, six sessions, and life got busy. You canceled your appointments. There was some reason that you said, “Hey, I can’t do this right now,” and so you never really got to see that process through.

Maybe you say, “Hey, I tried it,” but you really, like, dipped your toe in the water versus getting all the way into the pool like you needed to. And look, there’s no judgment because it’s really hard to face your stuff. Like, whatever your stuff is that you’re dealing with, regardless of the theme, it’s scary, right?

And we know that. You wanna ask yourself, like, “Am I ready to do this work?” Because I do think that’s a huge piece of it. I think you have to be ready to look at these hard and difficult thoughts. Like, where is this obsessional doubt coming from? What’s really the story that’s interwoven here? Looking at this feared self you’re afraid of becoming.

All these things can be really hard or uncomfortable or scary, vulnerable, whatever that is, to look at, so I get that. But that’s a point of evaluation for yourself to say Hey, did I go into this and I didn’t give it my full effort for whatever reason? It was a busy season at work. I didn’t do my therapy homework my therapist was encouraging me to do.

I was kind of only halfway bought into the process. Whatever it was, hey, maybe it would work if I fully immersed myself into that particular therapy. I know for iCBT it can be somewhat complicated. You’re learning all of these different parts and different pieces, and it takes a while. There’s a lot of awareness building that you get to before you actually get to the intervention stage.

And so a lot of times people will come in and it’s like, “What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?” And it’s like, “Okay, but you have to become aware first.” Well, that’s not very fun. People don’t want that answer. And as you become more aware, you can start to tweak and change, so it’s not like you don’t develop maybe interventions that on the front end that keep you from engaging with OCD, because you start to see it more.

“Oh, that’s OCD. I don’t need to disengage with that. Oh, that’s OCD. I don’t need to engage with that.” But as far as the skill processes of being able to recognize, like when you’re going into the OCD bubble, what specific thoughts are carrying you over there, getting into like more of the deeper alternative narrative writings, things like that, those steps come later in the process, reality sensing.

And a lot of times what I see with iCBT, if it’s not working, it’s because someone is not understanding the obsessional process that got them into that obsessional doubt. Either there’s multiple different things that can go wrong, not identifying the primary obsessional doubt, not really having a good clarity surrounding the obsessional story, not understanding the obsessional reasoning process of how they reasoned their way into OCD and the difference between that and an everyday reasoning process.

If you don’t have those pieces first, those pieces are really critical in iCBT to understand and a lot of times what I see is people saying, “Well, there’s a sensory gap here. How do I know what sensory information to pay attention to?” There’s a lot of confusion because they’re trying to reality sense too early Or they’re trying to write an alternative narrative too early, and they skipped these very important steps.

All of these pieces have to be able to work together. So know that there’s a time investment. Like, if you’re willing to learn ICBT for yourself, the course that I take people through is 12 weeks long. Originally, there were 12 modules to ICBT. Things have been really shaken up by the Resolving OCD books, and they’re just packaged very differently.

Same concepts. A lot of therapists are still utilizing the 12 modules that were in the original treatment manual. However you’re absorbing it, it’s still just a lot of information to really get into your system, sink down deep, and understand and practice. So keep that in mind if you are looking at, at doing ICBT.

I know from talking with people who have gone through exposure and response prevention in the past, one thing that can go wrong there is people feel like any type of exposure just feels like too much. They don’t feel like they can titrate it and gradually ease themselves into what they’re trying to tackle.

So that can be a challenge. Obviously, a lot of people drop out because it is hard, and maybe they can expose themselves to some things on the lower levels, but then not on the upper levels. I’ve also heard other people say, “Hey, I could totally do it with my therapist, but then I wasn’t really able to incorporate it outside of therapy.”

So there has to be a plan or a willingness if you’re gonna do ERP to have that– bridge that gap, right, between what you’re doing in session and what you’re doing outside of session, kind of to continue that journey on. Number three on increasing your hope when things have failed is to choose to believe that God has more for you, that Jesus promised an abundant life for you.

I’ve been really amazed with some of the people that I’ve worked with because their OCD was just so severe, and I’ve asked them, like, “Why did you keep going? Why did you keep pursuing treatment?” And the overwhelming thought process that they’ve given me is, “I just knew there had to be more out here. Like, if Jesus died for me to give me life, not just life forever in heaven with Him, but a life here that’s rich and full and purposeful, I knew that this OCD that I was trapped in, that this is not it.”

And that helped propel them and keep them moving forward. So I would encourage you that even if it’s hard to latch onto right now or it’s hard to believe, Jesus loves you. God loves you. He has an amazing plan for your life. He wants this to be a full and rich experience for you where you are connected with Him and not terrified to engage in your spiritual practices.

God wants you to be able to engage in community, to love God, and to love other people. I mean, those are the two greatest commandments. And if you feel like OCD is getting in the way of you loving God or loving other people, just know that God wants to meet you on your journey and that He has so much more for you.

And that it may be scary to step out and risk do– trying something new, and it may or may not work, and you kinda have to be okay with that. But just knowing that that’s part of your journey, and that’s part of your process. The reality is that we’re all on a character development track if we choose to be on that with God, that He is conforming us to the image of His Son.

That’s His desire for us, and sometimes that means we go through some really tough stuff and go through suffering, and that’s how I conceptualize OCD as suffering. I don’t conceptualize it as sin or something that you’re doing to cause this. It’s not punishment from God. It is human suffering as a result of the Fall, as a result of brains that are imperfect and don’t always function the way that they are supposed to.

My fourth and last point, which probably could be potentially an earlier point, is I want to encourage you to pray To seek God and to really believe in faith that He’s gonna guide you on this OCD recovery process and lead you towards what is the next step for you. And God has the ability to provide and make a way for whatever it is that you are needing.

There have been various different points in the process of my business, in the process of doing the podcast, where I was genuinely in need, and God showed up and provided what I needed, whether it was a contractor to work with, whether it was a business coach, whether it was a physical location. When I started my practice, I had about basically two months to get all of my ducks in a row to get everything straightened out.

I was in a group practice that essentially kind of broke apart a little bit. The owner decided to do– structure his business very differently, and it was kinda like, “Okay, well, okay, God, I guess I’m just jumping off the end of the pool,” because I knew that long term I wanted to be on my own. But I had become very comfortable with where I was at.

I wasn’t really in a state of high risk or anything of that nature. I had taken a couple years. I had built a full caseload. Everything was going smoothly, and then this shook everything up, and I was like, “Oh, man. God, I just wanted to stay here. It was just so comfortable. This is where I need to be.” And God ultimately made me uncomfortable so that I got out of that situation and ended up starting By the Well Counseling in twenty seventeen I can honestly tell you every single office that I’ve had, there’s some type of God story connected to that.

My very first office, I was driving around calling real estate agents, just looking for signs that said available office space in the area that I wanted to be in. And at that point in time, I didn’t want to move too far because of the clients that I was seeing. I was like, “I need to kinda sorta stay in this area.”

And God totally just provided something. The guy was like, “Oh, hey, yeah, I can show you the office.” We went in. It was the right size that I was looking for. It was this little tiny… It had four offices in it, but the total square footage was less than 1,000 square feet. It was maybe 750 square feet. It had this little tiny waiting room.

It had a bathroom. I was like, “Okay, that’s all we need.” God provided the people in there to rent from me to sublet the other offices. I had a couple other therapists in there, and I was able to keep that space full. There’s just so many things that I could tell you that God has done over the years, just providing me with the right people and connections to work with, but it hasn’t always been easy.

I have had to step out in faith. Not everything that I’ve done has worked out. Trust me, there have been a lot of things that never got off the ground. Empowered Mind is actually my fourth course that I’ve ever created, and it’s been definitely the most successful. My very first course was on anxiety and sold zero.

Failure is just a part of the process, but I say that to encourage you wherever you’re at to keep praying and keep asking God. And as we continue to submit to Him and continue to trust Him, He is gonna lead you on the right path at the right time. A lot of these stories and different things that I’m talking about, I love sharing those on our weekly email newsletter, just different things that God is showing me throughout the week.

Sometimes it’s a thing that has to do with parenting. Sometimes it’s a spiritual truth. Sometimes it’s a story about something from my past where God really showed up. I just believe that God wants us to have a sense of healing and wholeness in Jesus Christ. Does that mean that we’re gonna be 100% healed on this side of heaven?

I don’t think that’s always the case. Obviously, there are lovely Christian people that die of all types of different things, and some point or another, we are all going to pass away. But while we are on this earth, we are responsible at some level for stewarding our health physically emotionally, mentally, and partnering with God in that.

And so as you sit down and pray and seek God, just ask him, “What are my next steps?” And if you feel like God is leading you in a direction and the finances aren’t there, then pray for God to provide the financial way for you to be able to make this happen. And I believe that God will open up those doors as well.

There was a podcasting business coaching program that I got into before I rebranded the podcast almost two years ago now to Christian Faith & OCD. When I first found out about the coaching program, I did not have the money to get into it, and God totally provided for that in a very short period of time.

It was like, “Oh, okay, here’s the money.” And what was crazy was I still questioned it. I still went to my husband and I said, “We did get this money, but, I mean, should we spend it on this? Like, is this the right path?” Even though now I can look back on it, it was clearly God’s provision for something that I was already praying through, like, “Do you want me to be in this program?

Should I do this or not?” And that has completely, essentially changed the trajectory of my business and what I’m doing. I’m very thankful. I can look back over the past nine years of my business and tell you that what I started out doing nine years ago is very, very different than what I’m doing now. But I believe that God has me exactly where He wants me to be, and I’m trusting Him with whatever this next chapter is.

Would love to talk with any of you. If you wanna get in touch with us, you can go to keribach.com. And again, just know that as you’re praying through these different options, know that Empowered Mind Christian ICBT for OCD is an option for you. We have a full workbook that goes along with that course, with homework assignments where you can walk through and practice these skills with your particular OCD themes that you’re dealing with.

Thanks so much for listening. I’m gonna talk with you about some important course updates actually next podcast episode. So if you’re thinking about it, we’re gonna talk about that. And hint, hint, there is a Memorial Day sale coming up if you haven’t heard that. So be sure to check that out. In order to do that, you gotta get on our email list, so keribach.com.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Christian Faith & 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.