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Highly Sensitive - How This Affects OCD Treatment - Carrie Bock

135. Highly Sensitive? How This Affects OCD Treatment

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

Inspired by a suggestion from our listener Ashley, today Carrie is diving into how being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) affects OCD treatment. She explores why sensitivity matters and how it can shape your therapeutic journey.

Episode Highlights: 

  • What it means to be a Highly Sensitive Person and how it impacts daily life.
  • How being an HSP can influence the approach to treating OCD.
  • Carrie shares her own experiences with sensitivity and how she manages it.
  • Adjustments therapists can make to accommodate highly sensitive individuals in OCD treatment.

Episode Summary:

In this listener-suggested episode, we explore the intersection of being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and dealing with OCD. Ashley, a listener, reached out to share how understanding her HSP traits has aided her personal OCD treatment, and she wondered how this could factor into an effective therapeutic approach. I wholeheartedly agree that this should be considered, and in this episode, I explain why.

We first dive into what it means to be a Highly Sensitive Person, a trait characterized by heightened awareness and processing of environmental stimuli. I discuss my personal experiences as an HSP, from sensory overload in certain environments to needing silence after social interactions, and how this sensitivity can be both a challenge and a superpower.

The episode also covers the importance of tailoring OCD treatment for those who are highly sensitive. While Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is the gold standard for OCD, it’s crucial to approach treatment with empathy and understanding, especially for clients who might feel overwhelmed by traditional methods. I emphasize the need for open communication with your therapist to ensure the treatment process is effective and manageable.

Finally, I talk about anxiety sensitivity and how therapists can help clients become more comfortable with the physical sensations of anxiety. My hope is that this episode helps you, whether you’re highly sensitive or not, understand that there’s a reason God made you this way—and that it can be your superpower, not your burden.

Transcript:

Today we have a listener-suggestion podcast episode. Just super fun. Ashley had reached out to me via email and she told me that she, for her own personal benefit and treatment, has found the research on the highly sensitive person to be super helpful helping her understand herself. She’s found that not every therapist has been open to hearing about that. And she wondered, how does being a highly sensitive person factor in to a treatment approach for OCD? In short, I agree with what Ashley is saying. It should matter. And coming up, we’ll see why…

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 in to today’s episode.

I wanted to let you all know that this is your absolutely last chance to sign up for the Freedom from Mental Compulsions Challenge, happening on August the 5th at noon central time. So go to hopeforanxietyandocd.com/challenge We’re going to be talking about ICBT and how this can help with mental compulsions.

I am giving away a few prizes, coffee gift cards, and coaching time with Carrie, so we can’t wait to see you there. We’re in the midst of shifting websites, so I’m not sure which one we’re going to be on by the time this episode comes out. Hopefully long term we will be on carriebock.com. We’ll have all of my counseling and podcasting info housed in the same spot, which will be really helpful.

Before we talk about how being a highly sensitive person can impact OCD treatment, let’s first talk about what does that mean, something you maybe never heard that term before. There is a test, a self-test for you at hsperson.com. This is Elaine Aron’s website, and she’s the one who has done a research on being a highly sensitive person, back since 1991, she’s written several books, The Highly Sensitive Person being her signature most popular book, and then she’s written materials about having a highly sensitive child, which would be very interesting to read as well.

Some of the questions from the self test, “Are you easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens nearby? Do you make a point of avoiding violent movies and TV shows? Do you need to withdraw during busy days into bed or a darkened room or some other place where you can have privacy and relief from a situation?” Do you make it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations? Those are just a few sample questions. There are several more on the website for you to look at, but the main thing to understand is that highly sensitive people are really taking in all of this environmental stimuli that’s around them, and they’re getting a read on the situation, taking in information before acting or responding a little bit slower to process information because they’re getting so much in because they’re just sensitive to everything that’s going on. The lights, the sounds, the people, the emotions of the people, just all of these different things are factored in.

One in five people, so about 20%, are highly sensitive. It’s not the same thing as introversion, although the majority of them are introverts. About 70 percent of HSPs, that’s a shortened for a highly sensitive person, are introverts. It may be confused with shyness at times. It’s not the same thing as being shy, but a lot of times, especially if it happens in children, and this happened with me, they’ll say, “Oh, she’s shy.” It’s never a good connotation when somebody says that, so please don’t do that to your children, and I will not do that to mine. At least in my case, it was never said positively. It was always a negative. This is not a medical or psychological diagnosis like OCD. It’s more of an understanding of your own temperament and how you process sensory information.

I want to share with you how being a highly sensitive person has impacted my life a little bit and steps that I take to mitigate it. There’s a certain big box store, which shall not be named, but you can probably figure out which one it is when I describe it, that I prefer not to go in. I have gone in there plenty of times and bought things, but it’s not my preference because you go in there and not only is it all the fluorescent lighting, which they’ve made quote sensory-friendly hours now where you can go early in the morning and the lights are more dim, and I’m sure that does help people, but it’s not just the lighting for me.

It’s the massive quantities of stuff that’s in this store. There’s aisles and aisles of stuff. You have to go in there and find what you need, which is not always easy, unless you know where the stuff is in the store. There’s lots of stuff, and then there’s even stuff in the middle of the aisles, where you’re trying to go through. Then on the end of the aisles, like the end caps, if you’ve ever worked in retail, you know exactly what I’m talking about. There’s stuff even hanging from the end caps. There’s just stuff everywhere. And it’s a lot to take in, and it’s a lot to go, “Oh, there’s all this stuff, but where’s my stuff that I need? How can I get in here and get my stuff and not 80 other things?” Because that’s the whole strategy, right? That’s the whole strategy of having stuff everywhere, is they want you to look at it and buy it. It’s too much for me. Most days I just don’t want to do it. That’s one situation where being highly sensitive has affected me.

Daylight bulbs are really huge in our household. We have moved, and there isjust been so many little things that you want to shift and to move or change out. And one of those for us has been daylight bulbs. We got into our house, and we’re like, Ugh, it’s all this, like, orangey, fluorescent lighting.

Can’t take it. Went to the store, bought some daylight bulbs, and honestly, we’re still switching some of them out. We have some recessed lighting that we’re not happy with, and I’m not even sure we have to figure out how to change some of those pieces out, but Steve and I are both on board with the daylight bulbs.

We just do not like, in our home, in our peaceful space, we do not like the other type of lighting that there is out there. Another way being a highly sensitive person, one thing I’ve learned to mitigate with that is I can’t always be around constant noise. Some people just have, they have the radio on all the time or the TV on all the time, or they’re constantly getting something into them.

And I do listen to a lot of podcasts as my jam or whatever helps me relax or wind down or different things sometimes depending on the type of podcast to listen to. But if I have a really busy day or a day where I’m around a lot of people, this is a big one. If I am around a lot of people, I just have a need for silence.

I don’t want anybody to talk to me and I have to talk with people in my life. It’s, it’s no offense right now if I’m really quiet. I just had a really busy day. I just want to bitch. You can hang with me, but please don’t try to have a conversation with me right now because it’s just not gonna go well. I can get really irritable if I’m around people all day and I don’t have that time for silence or time to decompress for myself.

I think some of that is an introversion thing, but some of it is also a highly sensitive thing. If I go to a concert, and this can happen in movie theaters, not quite as much, not quite the same. If I was to see maybe a really intensely emotional movie in a movie theater, it might affect me a certain way, but as far as for concerts, So in Nashville, we have the Bridgestone Arena.

That’s where the hockey team plays. That’s where they have a lot of like big concert gatherings, things of that nature. There are smaller venues, obviously, in other places. But to go into the Bridgestone Arena, obviously, it’s huge. There’s going to be a ton of people there. But then as well, there’s also going to be a lot of noise.

It’s going to be super, super loud. I am going to want earplugs that I may or may not have forgotten. Lots of lights. So between the lights, the sounds, the people, when I leave that situation, it could be a concert that I really wanted to go to and I really love. Doesn’t matter. But if I leave that situation, the only way I can describe it to you is that I feel like my body is on vibrate.

And it takes me a long time to wind down from something like that. I just feel like I’m still in the concert when I’m not in the concert. Like my body is still trying to process that experience. The concerts can be a challenge for me. I talked about this in our episode on introversion, but one of my highly sensitive things, this one has to do with decision-making and contemplation.

If I’m going to a new restaurant, I will always look at the menu before I go. My husband and other people don’t get this. They probably think it’s really silly. But it’s funny because I remember my dad saying that when he first used to take my mom out to dinner that she would have a hard time choosing like something to eat and so maybe I just come by this completely honest, but I definitely want to see the menu because I want to look at all the options and really contemplate, “What do I actually want to eat?” This is better now because we have online menus and ordering and things like that, but heaven forbid they change the menu from what’s actually online and then I get there and I’m like, oh no, like the thing I wanted, it will be like, oh yeah, we don’t have that anymore or we’re out of that ingredient, so we can’t make that for you.

It’s, Oh no, back to square one, but thanks to the internet. It’s really easy, typically, to look at the menu before you go to the restaurant, and that’s a step that helps me out so much. I don’t know if that helps you out either, if you have a hard time deciding on what you want to eat. I don’t think it’s just a decision-making process.

I think it is the fact that a lot of times, especially go out to dinner with other people, you’re trying to look at the menu, and they’re trying to talk to you, and you’re trying to not be rude. They’ve decided what they want, you haven’t. It’s a whole thing. So I just prevent all of that the best I can. A big part of being highly sensitive is being super in tune to other people’s emotions and not just like picking up on other people’s emotions, but really feeling that and when you’re a kid and you don’t understand that you’re highly sensitive and you just feel everything really deeply, this feels like an absolute curse.

It does not feel like a good thing. You’re crying and somebody else isn’t, or you’re trying to hold something in maybe to not have a huge emotional reaction that you know is not going to go well. Being intuitive, picking up on the emotions of other people or feeling things very differently. As a kid, I never understood, or as a teenager, or even young adult, I didn’t understand probably until I was in my mid 20s how this was actually a positive thing for me and that this could be my superpower as a therapist.

It was hard to mitigate how do I separate my emotions of what I’m actually experiencing from other people’s emotions. and had to learn to be supportive of other people’s emotions without taking them on. And I wish I could tell you a cut-and-dry process to that, but I think it just happened over time.

I had to be comfortable with my emotional experience. I had to be comfortable with other people having their emotional experience. And then I could set up some healthy, just internal boundaries of allowing other people to have their emotional experience without taking it on, without creating responsibility for it.

Obviously, that’s a big thing. As a therapist, you’re there to come alongside somebody and support them through their process, not to just take bad feelings away or fix them somehow. And I will say that it can be challenging because society doesn’t always value being an HSP, especially if you’re a male.

That can be particularly tough. And I know that I’ve had males in therapy that are like, this is not a good thing. I have heard a statistic, although it’s been a while, that even though 20 percent of the population is HSP, about 75 percent of the individuals in therapy are HSPs. Which is why it’s really important for therapists to be understanding, even if they’re not a highly sensitive person, to be understanding how those traits are affecting a lot of their clients.

I love this quote from the highly sensitive person that sensitivity is anything but a flaw. Many HSPs are often unusually creative and productive workers, attentive and thoughtful partners, and intellectually gifted individuals, which is so beautiful. This can manifest beautifully in your life, whether that’s through creative outlets, whether that’s through being really attentive to your work, being able to connect.

That’s what I always tell people. If you are tuned into what somebody else is feeling, a lot of times it can help you connect with them in a really healthy way. Highly sensitive people are going to pick up on things maybe that other people don’t in the room. So in group work, this is helpful to say, hey, have you thought about how that wording comes across? Or because it seems rough to me, have you thought about, what about this person, can we include them? I know for myself if I walk into a social situation, and it’s been like this for a long time, probably because I was this person, but I can walk into a social situation and find that person sitting in the corner by themselves, not talking to anybody.

I can sense and read who in the room is anxious or edgy, and that is a gift in terms of ministry, in terms of being able to reach people. Now how does this affect OCD treatment? I couldn’t find a statistic on how many people diagnosed with OCD would also be considered highly sensitive, but I did find this comment in response to an article that someone had written about their experience, and I think it sums it up pretty well.

On the one hand, your mind is constantly processing everything around you in high detail, which can be exhausting. That’s the highly sensitive piece. On the other hand, your OCD tendencies can make you feel like you have to control everything around you, which can be totally exhausting. It’s a constant balancing act that can be difficult to manage.

Wow. That’s pretty intense there. How does this inform OCD treatment? OCD treatment tends to be pretty structured. There may be a therapist, let’s say they’re trying to follow ERP correctly, we would call that fidelity to the model. We’re trying to have fidelity to the model which has been researched and will, if we follow it the way that it’s written and supposed to be done, then our clients theoretically will get better.

That’s the goal and the idea. And so they may prompt a client to do an exposure that the sensitive person might feel is overwhelming or too much. They might need something broken down into smaller steps. So exposures are designed to be very gradual in nature. It’s important if you’re doing this type of therapy to make sure that you feel comfortable enough with your therapist to communicate when things feel overwhelming.

They’re not trying to give you a panic attack. That is not the point. Because you want to move through these hierarchies in a way that’s building confidence in tackling harder and harder things. But sometimes with ERP, there can be this mentality that’s a little bit like, hey, you’ve got to toughen up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, just push through.

That can be damaging. I won’t say that with all therapists, but Just sometimes with that model, it can be like, Hey, this is hard, but you still got to do it. Especially working with very avoidant people. Obviously, you have to push people a little bit more and that makes sense. So finding that balance with the client and the therapist can be really hard because you don’t want to just be like, okay, whatever you want to do. After all, then that person is not going to get better.

So finding that middle ground. And I know I’ve had clients in the past drop out of EMDR therapy for similar reasons. Like, maybe they got overwhelmed, they didn’t feel comfortable enough to let me know they wanted to stop, or maybe they had residual effects after the fact, which can certainly happen. If things are really rough for you after your last session, if you feel like things are just not working or not going the way that you need or want them to, Your therapist needs to know that.

Like, we really appreciate the feedback because that helps us tailor things specifically to you. We’ve been trained in all of these therapy modalities, but the idea is really to tailor them in such a way that’s going to help you get better as that can be a challenge, right? Because people are so different.

So what may work for one person might not work for somebody else, and that’s okay. If you’re a highly sensitive person, just finding somebody that you feel comfortable with, that you feel that sense of empathy. Oh, they get it. They see where I’m coming from. Another thing that we can do in the beginning stages of OCD treatment is work on things like anxiety sensitivity.

Anxiety sensitivity is when you’re sensitive or afraid of the physiological sensations, the body sensations that accompany anxiety, like rapid heart rate, difficulty breathing, or dizziness. In session, your therapist may have you induce some of these distress states outside of a period of panic or high anxiety to help you get used to the body sensations and know that they’re not actually going to harm you. It’s not necessarily the body sensations themselves, it’s the feeling out of control of the body sensations when they come on sporadically. A lot of times it’s troubling for people. Ways to work on this, your therapist may have you turn in circles for dizziness, like run in place, or do jumping jacks to increase your heart rate, breathing through a coffee stir for dizziness.

These types of activities can be helpful because sometimes clients get triggered even during workouts, even though it’s normal during a workout to have some difficulty breathing or to have an elevated heart rate. You can learn, okay, I can be in this state, my body is not being damaged by it, it’s a normal reaction.

With OCD treatment, we’re working on retraining your threat detection system. So if you can feel those feelings in your body in a safe environment, like therapy, that would be the ideal. You can know and learn to tolerate them as uncomfortable as they may be. My hope is that this episode may help some of you understand yourself a little bit better and just know if God has created you as a highly sensitive person, there’s a reason that you are this way, and I pray that he shows you how that can be a superpower instead of a burden, because I know for me, for a long time, I just saw it as a burden.

And now I can see it as a superpower and I can do things in my life to take care of myself so that I am not overwhelmed all the time by sensory information. 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 leave us a review on 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.

The Rebrand Story of Christian Faith and OCD - Carrie Bock

Bonus Episode: The Rebrand Story of Christian Faith and OCD

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode. No Comments on Bonus Episode: The Rebrand Story of Christian Faith and OCD

Join Carrie as she introduces the rebranded podcast, “Christian Faith and OCD. She shares the journey from “Hope for Anxiety and OCD” to the new focus, discussing the reasons behind the change, listener feedback, and the impact the podcast has had over the past three and a half years.

Episode Highlights:

  • The strategic decision to focus more on OCD and include “Christian” in the podcast title.
  • The significance of addressing scrupulosity and faith-informed therapy for OCD.
  • How Carrie found guidance through prayer and a Christian podcast coach.
  • Plans for the podcast, including practical resources for managing OCD
  • Upcoming webinar: The Freedom from Mental Compulsions Challenge

Episode Summary:

Welcome to a special bonus episode of Christian Faith and OCD! Today marks the beginning of our rebranding journey from Hope for Anxiety and OCD to Christian Faith and OCD. I’ve been hosting this podcast since the fall of 2020, and over the past three and a half years, we’ve seen incredible growth and transformation. However, earlier this year, I noticed a decline in our download numbers, which led me to reevaluate the podcast’s direction and purpose.

After much prayer and reflection, I realized it was time for a change. This rebrand focuses more intentionally on OCD, especially since our most popular episodes have consistently been those centered on OCD topics and personal stories. By adding “Christian” to the title, I’m ensuring that our content is clearly faith-based, which is crucial for listeners seeking spiritual guidance alongside mental health support.

Through this process, God has shown me the importance of sharing my knowledge and experiences directly with you, our listeners. While I love interviewing guests, I’m shifting towards more solo episodes to provide practical strategies for managing OCD from a Christian perspective. This rebrand also aligns with my passion for helping those with scrupulosity and other OCD-related challenges find peace and healing.

If you’ve been with us from the beginning, thank you for your continued support. And if you’re new, welcome! I’m excited to walk alongside you on this journey of faith and mental wellness. Don’t forget to join us for the Freedom from Mental Compulsions Challenge on August 5th, where we’ll dive deeper into how Inference-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) can help you manage OCD.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

Transcript:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock, a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. Some of you are wondering, did I hear that right? Yes, you did. Today is the day we are starting the process of going from Hope for Anxiety and OCD to Christian Faith and OCD. I’ve been alluding to rebranding for quite some time, and I wanted to tell you the story of how this process came about.

I have been hosting Hope for Anxiety and OCD since the fall of 2020. It’s been about three and a half years now. So many good things have happened. I’ve had Christians write to me expressing thanks that they were no longer afraid or ashamed to take medication, which is incredible. Several people wrote saying, Hey, I thought I had anxiety, but I listened to your show.

I started listening to the personal stories of OCD and realized, Hey, I think that’s me. I have OCD. Of course that was life-changing for them to have that knowledge. I’ve been able to meet people, and see people for counseling that might not have found me otherwise across Tennessee had it not been for the podcast.

I’ve even had people travel from out of state to do counseling retreats with me, which I talked about in a previous episode. That’s been amazing. But earlier this year, I noticed that our downloads were declining and I thought, okay, we’re really only producing an episode every other week. I realize that’s a slow pace.

I did that because of having my daughter being pregnant, and going through the process of having an infant. If you’ve been there, you know it’s a lot, okay? I took a little bit of a step back for the last couple of years while my daughter was growing up and recognized, like, this is a good time to go ahead and start putting out an episode every week.

So we started doing that a few months ago. What I didn’t know about the download decline was that it wasn’t just about people getting lost or dwindling away from listening to the show. It had to do with an Apple update where if you were subscribed to podcasts in Apple’s they would download for you.

People’s phones were filling up, they didn’t like that feature and Apple decided to Scrap that with an iOS 17 update, things are no longer auto download. What that means in the podcasting world is that we had a lot of false downloads. We were looking at statistics where maybe a bunch of episodes were downloaded, but people weren’t really listening or people weren’t really necessarily following.

Now all of our download numbers are more accurate picture of who’s actually Initiating that download and listening to the show as I was going through this process Recognizing like okay things had been going up and up and up for a while And then things had kind of leveled off and they were going down I prayed this prayer of desperation of God in late February saying I don’t know what I’m doing I’ve had this podcast for a long time over three years and I just need help.

I need to know Okay, God, what is my next step? What am I really doing here? And it was one of those pivotal moments where you’re like, okay, I’ve got to either keep doing this or I’ve got to stop. Like, it just felt like almost like there was no other option. Like, are we going to keep going? Can I still do this?

And I said, okay, God, if you want me to do this, you are going to have to send me some help to know how to make this podcast better and to grow this show. And. I was in the process and my husband and I were thinking about getting ready to move. I was listening to this organizational podcast. It was just organizing your house, different areas of your house.

I thought, well, this will be really great for me. As I’m decluttering, I’m getting ready to move. I’m thinking about how I’m going to want my house to be more organized when we move. That was a big push for me. Listen to this podcast, and she says something about her friend who’s a Christian podcast coach, and I was like, what, wait?

It was one of those moments where you said, did she just say that? Like, rewound for a few seconds, and I was like, “Oh, okay.” I wrote down the lady’s name, and God’s timing was so specific, she was just getting ready to launch her coaching program again, uh, for a six-month coaching program. I looked it all up online, and I said, okay, God, this is kind of expensive, but if you want me to do this, then you’re gonna have to provide the money because right now it’s not in the account.

Lo and behold, I received some money that I was not expecting. I brought the money into the business. I was able to buy the program and started really making some changes and revamping in that process. I talked to Steve about it. I said, what should I do? Is this okay to spend this money on this? What do you think?

He’s always been just incredibly supportive. Like I said, go for it. I think that this is what you need to do. God lined all of these different things up for you after you reached this breaking point and prayed about it. So here we are, and I started to look at the podcast with completely new eyes.

What were the episodes that you guys were listening to what was getting downloaded the most it just came down to the OCD episodes was a short answer, especially any personal stories related to OCD are probably our most popular episodes other than obviously a lot of people listen to the first episode to see Hey, what’s this whole podcast thing about?

Putting Christian in the title was very strategic because when you have a podcast called Hope for Anxiety and OCD, unfortunately, you get a lot of people contacting you, not realizing it’s a Christian podcast, maybe tuning in, not realizing, hey, we do talk about God and spiritual issues on the show. Unfortunately, we get a lot of what I call woo-woo requests, people that are like metaphysics crystals and some other stuff that I’m like, I don’t think so.

That’s not really what we do over here. Putting Christian in the title was very strategic for me. Focusing more on OCD was obviously very strategic, just in looking at the resources that you guys are looking for. I never would have started an OCD podcast three and a half years ago for a few different reasons.

One, there’s a little bit of an imposter syndrome being in this space speaking to these issues and not having lived experience with OCD. I would say the majority of people that I meet who treat OCD also have OCD. I know that that’s not always the case, but typically in cases of things like addictions.

Eating disorders, OCD, like very specialized areas. A lot of times people have some type of lived experience, either they’ve lived it or someone in their family has lived it. So for me, there is a little bit of an imposter syndrome saying I’m out here treating OCD and I haven’t had that specific experience.

I think that there are pieces of it that feel very relatable to me. The anxiety feels relatable because I’ve definitely had my fair share of anxiety in my life. The catastrophic thinking feels relatable. Perfectionism I can definitely relate to. I am a recovering perfectionist. I don’t consider myself a perfectionist now.

That’s something that the Lord has really worked with me on. It took a period of many years and lots of mistakes and lots of learning to be comfortable with not always doing things right, but praise the Lord I’m not there where I was before. So there are different pieces that I can consider that I can relate to, but I don’t have the lived experience that a lot of you guys have.

It was interesting because I talked with one of our recent guests that I did a personal story with about this, Crystal Probst, and she said it’s okay because one of her therapists that had a lived experience with OCD, she felt like understood her less than the therapist she saw that didn’t have the lived experience, and that was partially due to maybe different themes and different understandings that she felt like that person had.

The other reason I wouldn’t have started a podcast having to do with OCD three years ago is because I didn’t have a large client basis at the time that I started the podcast of OCD clients. Now that has shifted a lot since starting the podcast. I’ve been able to work with more clients with OCD, more clients that had a higher level of severity, and I realized that there’s a lot more help out there in general for Christians with anxiety than with OCD.

In the process of seeing more and more clients with OCD. It’s caused me to dig in a lot deeper, and gain even more knowledge, more training, more consultation with other counselors. I’m constantly learning new things and I’m constantly being challenged, but I enjoy that a lot. I think this intersection of Christian faith and OCD is so important because many people with scrupulosity feel like they’re dealing with a spiritual issue when actually what they’re dealing with is OCD.

So if they feel like they’re dealing with a spiritual issue, they don’t want to take that to someone who is not well versed in Christianity or doesn’t know the Bible. I also know there are significant struggles for Christians who are looking at exposure and response prevention therapy. Sometimes this therapy is not faith informed.

Some people do a really great job of being faith-informed and really knowing how to do sensitive exposures based on a person’s faith. There are therapists that aren’t Christian who are willing to work with your pastor or talk about it. What are the teachings or any of these exposures going against your belief system or would be inappropriate or disrespectful?

However, there are some other people out there that are potentially going kind of rogue. I hate to say negative things about therapists, but it’s just like any other field, there are some good ones and there are some not so good ones. Unfortunately, it’s hard sometimes for Christians to find helpful, appropriate OCD therapy where they feel like this person that they’re receiving help from has a strong spiritual background as well as a strong clinical background.

I know that it can be challenging for clients in ERP to write imaginal exposures. writing things that are not true about God and having to read those over or sit with them. I had a secular provider tell me that she’s recommended clients not pray for a time period. Someone else told me recently that they had heard about exposure of reading the satanic bible, which I don’t see as a religiously sensitive exposure.

These different types of things are coming up and I don’t say that to scare anybody away from ERP. There are some Qualified, healthy ERP trained therapists, we’ve had them on the show before, we’ve also had people on the show with personal stories who’ve received ERP and have had good experience.

Unfortunately, it’s just a mixed bag out there, and some ERP therapists are not trauma-informed. That’s unfortunate, since trauma exacerbates OCD symptoms, and 25 percent of people who are diagnosed with OCD also qualify for post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. That’s a good chunk. That’s a quarter of people diagnosed with OCD.

So that’s, trauma is something that has to be taken into consideration. This is one of the reasons that I have really latched on to ICBT therapy, inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy. For me, having a background in treating trauma, this is a much more trauma sensitive and trauma informed therapy treatment for OCD.

One thing that’s shifted with the show, if you’ve noticed and been listening over the last few months, is that this started out being primarily an interview show, and I do love interviewing people, I am gonna have more guests on, but I am transitioning this to a majority solo episode show with some guests sprinkled in who’ve had lived experience with OCD, Thank you Or professional tidbits to share with you guys.

Through this process of reworking the podcast, God has shown me that he wants to me to share with you the knowledge that I’ve learned and to use my voice to speak into the issues that you are all facing. I hear different things all the time, whether it’s from clients that I have, or people writing to me, or people that I’m participating in learning sessions with, and there’s so much that I want to share with you. And I want this show to be more practical tips for a lot of times. We’ve had a variety of different information. It’s a little bit been all over the place. Some people I’m sure have enjoyed that. So our tagline is practical strategies to greater peace. Because I want you to walk away with practical tools and guidance that you can get to have a healthier relationship with your OCD.

Ultimately, I would love for everyone listening to this to be healed, but I also know that just like some people have chronic health conditions, some people have chronic mental health conditions. That doesn’t make you less of a Christian, it is not your fault if you are struggling with OCD, but if we can’t get rid of something, sometimes we can have a different relationship with it.

I’ve seen this in my own life in terms of dealing with some back pain that I’ve had to deal with off and on for the last several years, uh, tailbone pain, and I have seen this in the life of my husband who has SCA, which is a neurological disorder. He’s an incredible testimony that God can still use you, even with your limitations.

He’s actually in Guatemala as this episode is coming out, um, and he’s ministering to children and teens there. I’m definitely so proud of him for that. Now I want to speak with some of you who are struggling with this change. Maybe you’re dealing with anxiety and you’re disappointed that I am focusing in on OCD.

I see you. I also know that some of this information, not all of it, but some of it is still going to apply to you. There are some of you with anxiety that are still googling too much. There are some of you with anxiety that are still dealing with whether you should take medication or not. There are some of you with anxiety that are catastrophizing and coming up with all kinds of worst-case scenarios.

While we might address that a little bit differently in terms of treating anxiety versus treating OCD, some of the information is still going to be relevant to you, and if you want to hang around and listen to it, you’re certainly still welcome to. I see this. podcast as a ministry and God has definitely blessed me by allowing me to be a part of what is now a worldwide ministry.

I would have never imagined that I would be the host of something that’s going out into all of the world. I did not see that coming at all, but I feel so thankful to each one of you who listen. I know that we have a cohort of people who Download our episodes week after week after week. So thankful for all of you.

Even if you just pop in and listen a little bit here and there, I am thankful for you. And know that if you do reach out and send emails and talk to us or communicate with us, I do read all of our emails. I look forward to what God is going to do in the future in and through this podcast platform.

Please join me on August the 5th for a free webinar, The Freedom from Mental Compulsions Challenge, where I’ll be talking with you more about how ICPT can be helpful specifically for mental compulsions, although certainly it works for physical compulsions as well. I’m going to be giving away some free coaching sessions, so I’m excited to be doing that.

The goal is for us to have fun and learn together. To sign up for the webinar, go to hopeforanxietyandocd.com slash challenge. That is one thing I forgot to tell you. Our updated website is in process. Right now, we are working on getting everything switched over to carriebhock.com. That’s a funny story within itself, because I always thought that people who had their own domain name thought a little too highly of themselves and probably swore I’d never do it.

But, it just makes most sense for people who are looking for me, for counseling services, or for the podcast. So, It’s not live yet, but you will know when it’s live if you sign up for our webinar or you get on our email list. Hopeforanxietyandocd. com slash and challenge. See you there. Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling.