Do you struggle with unwanted and recurring thoughts that feel impossible to control? Do you find yourself repeating actions—like checking, cleaning, or counting—just to ease the anxiety those thoughts create?
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can leave you feeling trapped in cycles of fear and ritual that disrupt daily life, strain relationships, and take away your peace of mind.
This guide will help you understand how to find a therapist who can help with OCD, near you or online.
1. BetterHelp
If you’re looking for a licensed OCD therapist, BetterHelp makes it simple to get started.
The platform connects you with experienced therapists—each with at least three years of experience—many of whom specialize in OCD and related conditions, such as body dysmorphic disorder and hoarding.
If you feel intense anxiety, shame, powerlessness, or low self-esteem, these therapists can help you work through those thoughts and emotions in a supportive, nonjudgmental environment.
Many also have training in trauma, depression, and anxiety disorders—giving you flexibility if your concerns overlap.
During sign-up, you’ll complete a short questionnaire about your challenges (e.g., OCD), goals, and preferences (e.g., female therapist).
Then, BetterHelp will match you with someone who can address your specific needs, such as fear of contamination (germs/dirt) or intrusive thoughts. If your first match doesn’t feel right, you can easily switch to another therapist.
BetterHelp offers several ways to connect, including video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and messaging—so you can choose what feels most comfortable.
You get one live therapy session per week, typically conducted via video call. If you’re struck by an intrusive thought for example in between sessions, you can send your therapist a message and address this the next time you meet.
BetterHelp offers weekly plans billed every four weeks, which you can cancel at any time. Insurance is not accepted, but financial aid is available—including support for veterans—which can make therapy more affordable and accessible.
If you’re seeking an OCD therapist, BetterHelp offers accessible care that can help you manage symptoms and ease distress.
2. Mental Health Today therapist directory
Our Mental Health Today therapist directory makes it simple to connect with licensed professionals who treat OCD. You can filter by specialty, state, therapy approach, or qualifications (e.g., PhD in counseling).
If you’re living with OCD, you may face distressing symptoms such as repetitive cleaning or checking, and symmetry/ordering.
Our directory helps you find a therapist experienced in helping with these challenges and, if important to you, one who also understands related concerns like trauma, depression, or anxiety.
Many providers bring added expertise in areas such as marriage and family counseling or stress management. This means your care can focus on OCD while also supporting your relationship and overall well-being as needed.
You also decide how you’d like to meet with therapists, either in-person or online, through video or phone sessions. This allows you to address your symptoms in a way that fits your lifestyle, using a therapy mode that’s most comfortable to you.
Costs are set directly by each therapist, so you’ll need to confirm fees and insurance coverage with providers. Some also offer sliding-scale pricing based on income, in case you would struggle to pay out of pocket.
If you’re seeking an OCD therapist, our directory is a practical place to begin—making specialized, compassionate care easy to access.
3. Online-Therapy.com
Online-Therapy.com is a structured platform built entirely around Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—the leading evidence-based treatment for OCD.
Its approach combines live therapist support with structured CBT exercises you complete online, helping you work through obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors in a clear, guided process.
When you sign up, you’ll complete a short questionnaire about your symptoms, personal goals (e.g., improving self-esteem), and therapist preferences.
You can then choose how to connect with your therapist—either through video sessions, voice calls, or text messaging. The platform also provides an OCD-specific assessment to help you track patterns in your thoughts and behaviors.
What sets Online-Therapy.com apart is its therapist-guided CBT program. Once matched with a counselor, you’ll work through exercises that target the cycle of obsessions and compulsions.
For example, you can identify intrusive triggers, challenge unhelpful beliefs, and practice healthier responses. Your therapist provides feedback as you progress, combining self-paced learning with ongoing guidance.
In addition to therapy, the platform includes practical resources such as worksheets, journaling prompts, and even yoga videos, designed to reduce stress and promote emotional balance.
If you’re seeking an OCD therapist, Online-Therapy.com provides a clear, structured path toward managing symptoms and building long-term coping strategies.
How to choose an OCD therapist
Not all therapists specialize in OCD, and finding someone who does can make a big difference.
The problem is, it’s not always easy to find a therapist who can accurately diagnose and treat OCD. Research suggests that it normally takes 14 to 17 years from the onset of symptoms for OCD sufferers to receive proper treatment.
This delay happens for many reasons—including misdiagnosis, stigma, and the difficulty of finding therapists who specialize in OCD.
Qualifications and credentials
Start by confirming that your therapist is licensed. Common credentials include LPCs (Licensed Professional Counselors), LCSWs (Licensed Clinical Social Workers), or PhD/PsyD-level psychologists.
Most will have a master’s or doctoral degree in psychology or counseling. Some also pursue advanced training or certification in OCD-specific methods such as Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) or CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).
Experience and approach
Experience matters—especially with OCD. It can be a good idea to ask a therapist about OCD cases they’ve treated, and whether they specialize in ERP, CBT or ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a form of CBT).
During these types of treatments, a skilled therapist will guide you through controlled exposure experiences, helping you confront fears without relying on compulsions.
For example, if you struggle with contamination fears, they may design an exposure where you touch a doorknob and delay washing your hands, helping you learn that anxiety fades over time.
Building a therapeutic relationship
Credentials matter, but connection matters more. Look for a therapist who helps you feel safe, heard, and respected.
OCD often brings shame, so compassion and patience are essential. If you sense judgment or dismissiveness, it might not be the right fit.
Practical considerations
Think about location, scheduling, and whether online therapy is available. Many people with OCD prefer teletherapy—both for convenience and because it can allow you to face obsessions (exposures) in real-life settings, rather than in an unfamiliar, clinical environment.
Costs and insurance coverage vary, so ask about fees upfront, and whether financial aid is available, if you’re on a lower income or struggling with high expenses at the moment.
It’s often a good idea to use your first session as a consultation. Ask about the therapist’s experience with OCD, their therapeutic approach, and how they measure progress.
This helps set expectations and gives you a feel for whether they’re the right fit for your recovery.
How to know when it might be worth seeing an OCD therapist
Everyone has the occasional unwanted thought or quirky habit. You double-check the door or feel the urge to line up items—and then move on.
For people with OCD, though, these thoughts and behaviors become overwhelming. Clinicians often use the “four Ds” to explain the difference:
- Deviance—thoughts or behaviors that feel outside cultural or personal norms.
- Distress—causing significant anxiety, guilt, or shame.
- Dysfunction—interfering with work, relationships, or daily life.
- Danger—posing a risk to yourself or others.
If your experiences fall into these areas, it may be time to connect with an OCD therapist.
Obsessions: distressing, intrusive thoughts
A key sign therapy could help is the presence of obsessions—distressing, repetitive, persistent thoughts, ideas, images, or impulses that feel outside your control and cause considerable anxiety.
These are not just everyday worries. They may include fear of contamination (such as germs, disease, or dirt), intrusive violent or sexual images, or thoughts of harming someone.
The more you try to suppress these thoughts, the stronger the anxiety becomes.
Compulsions: rituals that take over
OCD also involves compulsions—repetitive behaviors or mental acts done to relieve anxiety or “neutralize” a fear.
These might include actions like repeated handwashing, checking, counting, or silently repeating phrases.
While compulsions may bring short-term relief, they often reinforce the cycle—taking up more time and energy.
Time and daily impact
One red flag is when obsessions and compulsions take up more than one hour each day. Even if it feels manageable, the toll on your focus, mood, and quality of life can begin to add up.
Emotional distress and secrecy
OCD often brings shame. You might feel disturbed by your thoughts or hide your rituals out of fear that others won’t understand.
If you feel powerless, embarrassed, or isolated because of these patterns, this is a strong sign that professional support could help.
Overlap with other conditions
OCD often co-occurs with depression, anxiety, or trauma. For example, compulsions may drain your day and leave you feeling hopeless, or you might avoid relationships out of fear of judgment.
When OCD coexists with other conditions, the distress can deepen—and therapy becomes even more essential.
Taking the step toward help
Not every unwanted thought or habit means you have OCD. But if obsessions and compulsions feel persistent, distressing, and disruptive, reaching out for professional help can make a real difference.
How OCD is treated in therapy
Many people with OCD worry, “Am I going to be like this forever?” The good news is that OCD is highly treatable.
While it may not disappear completely, effective therapy can significantly reduce symptoms, improve daily function, and help you regain a sense of control.
Treatment is about learning to manage OCD so it no longer runs your life—and understanding how your thoughts feed the cycle is the first step.
Research shows people with OCD often:
- Hold themselves to very high moral or behavioral standards. For example: “If I accidentally offend someone, I’m a bad person.”
- Believe unwanted thoughts are dangerous or equal to actions (a view called thought-action fusion, or TAF). For example: “If I think about harming someone, it means I might actually do it.”
- Feel they should have complete control over their mind and behavior. For example: “If I can’t stop this thought, something is seriously wrong with me.”
These beliefs make OCD feel urgent and unmanageable—but therapy targets them directly.
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP): facing your fears without rituals
ERP is widely recognized as the most effective form of therapy for OCD. ‘Exposure’ means gradually facing your fear, regardless of whether it’s an item, a place, or even a loved one who brings up anxiety.
‘Response prevention’ involves choosing not to do the rituals or mental habits that usually follow, like repeating a phrase, saying a prayer, finding a distraction, or mentally arguing with the thought.
The key is to stay with the anxiety without doing anything to neutralize it.
For example, if you have OCD around checking, you might feel the urge to repeatedly confirm that you have locked the front door. An exposure would be locking the door once, then leaving without going back to check. The response prevention is resisting the urge to return or mentally replay whether you locked it. Over time, your brain learns that nothing bad happens even without performing the ritual.
As you repeat this over time, your brain learns it doesn’t need rituals to feel safe—and the anxiety naturally fades.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): understanding and reframing unhelpful thoughts
CBT helps people with OCD understand how their beliefs about intrusive thoughts fuel the cycle of thinking and compulsion.
It’s not the presence of a disturbing thought that causes distress—it’s how the thought is interpreted.
For example, you might believe that simply having a bad thought makes it more likely to come true, or that skipping a ritual means you want something harmful to happen.
CBT teaches you to challenge these interpretations by examining the evidence: Have you ever acted on these thoughts? Are thoughts the same as actions?
Through guided exercises, you learn to replace irrational interpretations with more balanced and realistic ones. By changing how you view these thoughts, they begin to feel less threatening.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): accept what you can’t control
ACT takes a different approach from traditional CBT. Instead of trying to get rid of intrusive thoughts, ACT helps you change your relationship with them.
You learn that thoughts don’t have to control your actions, and that you can still live according to your values, even when feeling anxious.
For example, even if a scary thought pops up, you can still choose to go about living your life, rather than disengaging in order to feel safe.
ACT uses tools like mindfulness, acceptance, and setting meaningful goals based on what matters to you, which helps you become more flexible in how you handle anxiety.
This means being able to stay present, handle difficult emotions, and make choices that move your life in a meaningful direction.
A psychodynamic perspective
Some therapists take a deeper look at the emotional roots of OCD. This approach sees obsessions and compulsions as ways of coping with inner conflict or anxiety.
These struggles are not buried in your unconscious—they often show up in your day-to-day thoughts and rituals.
Exploring these patterns can help you understand how deeper emotional issues may be driving your OCD.
While not a first-line treatment, psychodynamic therapy can be helpful—especially when OCD overlaps with other emotional struggles. It often works best alongside ERP or CBT.
Other helpful tools
In addition to core therapies, many clinicians use supportive strategies, such as:
- Mindfulness and relaxation training to reduce overall stress and improve tolerance of anxiety.
- Family involvement to help loved ones understand OCD and avoid unhelpful reactions or participation in rituals.
- Journaling or mood tracking to notice progress and setbacks over time.
Drug therapy
Some people with OCD benefit from medication, often alongside therapy. The most common are SSRIs—antidepressants that increase serotonin levels in the brain.
They don’t “cure” OCD, but can make therapy more effective. A psychiatrist can help you decide if medication is right for your symptoms and goals.
Online vs in-person OCD therapy
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, therapy has become more accessible, with many people now meeting their therapists online.
But if you’re dealing with OCD, you might wonder: is virtual therapy as effective as in-person care?
For many people, yes—online therapy can work just as well as in-person therapy, especially for conditions like OCD.
In-person therapy offers structure and a strong sense of presence. Being in the same room helps your therapist notice body language, facial expressions, and other cues that guide the session.
Some people also find it easier to face anxiety triggers when someone is physically nearby to support them.
But in-person care isn’t always a practical solution. If you live in a rural area or can’t find a local OCD specialist, you may struggle to access consistent support. Travel time, work schedules, and family duties can also make it difficult to maintain regular appointments.
Online therapy removes many of these barriers. You can connect with a licensed OCD therapist by video, phone, or messaging, from the comfort of your home.
For example, you might schedule weekly ERP sessions and send updates between appointments to track progress or flag concerns.
And for some, meeting from home can be very helpful—especially if your OCD includes fears around leaving the house, contamination, or being judged. The privacy and control of online sessions can feel safer as you begin therapy.
However, online therapy isn’t right for everyone. Tech issues can disrupt sessions, and if your OCD symptoms feel overwhelming or unsafe, in-person care may offer more stability and support.
Conclusion
OCD isn’t something that’s simply “cured”—but it is highly treatable. If you’re struggling, know that you’re not alone, and you’re not broken.
A qualified therapist can help you manage symptoms, challenge unhelpful patterns, and regain a sense of peace and control in your life.
If you’re not sure how best to find an OCD therapist near you, leave us a comment below, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
