Counselling Specialties
Anxiety & OCD Therapy
Book a Free 20-Minute Consultation“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
— Wayne W. Dyer
Both anxiety and OCD are very closely linked in intrusive thoughts and feelings and their ability to influence our actions. Anxiety is often driven by persistent worry, fear, or unease. It can make decision-making feel dangerous, as if every choice carries serious risk, until you become paralysed by it. OCD has a more specific pattern: intrusive thoughts cause distress, and you engage in compulsions because they relieve that distress.
Anxiety disorders can often show up differently depending on where your mind gets stuck. Some people get stuck in a loop of “what if.” Others avoid certain situations entirely. OCD is marked by obsessions (intrusive, unwanted thoughts) and compulsions (repetitive behaviours or mental acts used to reduce distress), which are often absent or less central in anxiety disorders.
Living with anxiety or OCD is exhausting. The places and things you avoid multiply every day. You find that the life you’re able to live gets smaller and smaller. When you realize that it’s time to work through this pain, know that effective treatment is available. Pathway to Self is here to help you build a life that isn’t narrowed by OCD and anxiety.
Therapy helped me understand why the things I was doing to feel safer were keeping the anxiety going. I avoided places, cancelled things, left when I started to panic, and slowly my life got smaller. I learned I could stay with the anxiety instead of immediately escaping it, and that it would eventually come down on its own. I still get anxious sometimes. The difference is I can go places, talk to people, do things I used to avoid, and the anxiety doesn’t run my life anymore.
What you’re doing to deal with the anxiety or OCD makes complete sense. For some people it’s visible, disruptive habits. For others, it’s invisible: painful thoughts and emotions, and the things you do in your head to try to stop them.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) involves intense and constant worry about everyday life without a clear reason. You expect something bad to happen and can’t stop worrying about your health, family, money, or other parts of your life.
Panic Disorder
A panic attack is a sudden rush of fear or discomfort that brings strong physical sensations and disturbing thoughts. For some people, panic attacks result in panic disorder, which involves ongoing worry about another attack. You find yourself changing how you live your life as you try to avoid another attack.
Phobias
Phobias are intense, persistent fears of specific objects, experiences, or situations. These fears can overwhelm and change how you are able to interact with the world, often forcing you to adjust and avoid fear-inducing situations.
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety disorder is a persistent, intense fear of being judged, evaluated, or humiliated by other people. That fear creates avoidance, which, in turn, restricts your daily life, relationships, career and work. You turn down invitations, fear meetings, go over conversations days later, or notice your heart is racing when you receive a phone call.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
OCD involves intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that trigger intense distress, leading to physical or mental rituals (compulsions) that help relieve it. OCD demands unrealistic certainty from life, and puts you at odds with the rest of your life.
You need treatment designed specifically for you and what you’re going through. The Pathway to Self method involves a combination of CBT/DBT/ERP, parts work, mindfulness and somatic practice, amongst many other approaches. We focus first on building stability and a stronger sense of security before moving to tackle the underlying causes of your symptoms.
Life becomes smaller and narrower as more of it gets organized around your symptoms. You feel isolated, discouraged, and hopeless. The symptoms make the decisions for you, and you feel as though you’ve been left behind. Life feels emptier the more you try to reason your way out.
The Pathway to Self method lets you find a way through, so that your thoughts, obsessions and predictions feel less powerful. You’ll start reclaiming the parts of your life you miss the most, reconnecting with friends, family, and relationships, and putting your attention back into what gave your life meaning and purpose. You’ll understand yourself better too, and build a stronger sense of who you are beyond the anxiety or OCD.
Redefining yourself and your life outside the disorder changes how you see yourself and what you believe is possible. It means seeing a future again, and returning to who you know you can be.