Frequently Asked Questions About ERP Therapy
Common questions from people looking for online therapy in California for OCD, intrusive thoughts, PTSD, panic attacks, agoraphobia, illness anxiety, generalized anxiety, specific phobias, and trauma symptoms.
General therapy questions
What conditions do you treat?
I provide online therapy for OCD, anxiety disorders, and PTSD. This includes panic disorder, agoraphobia, illness anxiety, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, specific phobias, intrusive thoughts, compulsions, trauma reminders, and avoidance patterns.
Do I need a diagnosis before starting therapy?
No. Many people start therapy because they know something feels stuck. But they are not sure whether it is OCD, trauma, panic, health anxiety, generalized anxiety, or a phobia. The intake process helps clarify what is happening and what treatment approach fits best.
Is online therapy available throughout California?
Yes. Whatif Therapy provides secure telehealth therapy to clients located anywhere in California. You can attend sessions from home, work, school, or another private space.
Who do you work with?
I work with adults, teenagers, and children in California. For children and teens, parent involvement is often part of treatment, especially when anxiety, OCD, avoidance, reassurance seeking, or family accommodation is present. For PTSD I treat only treat adults.
OCD and ERP therapy questions
What is ERP therapy?
Exposure and Response Prevention, or ERP, is a structured therapy used for OCD and many anxiety disorders. It helps people face feared thoughts, sensations, memories, or situations while reducing compulsions and avoidance.
Do you treat intrusive thoughts?
Yes. Intrusive thoughts can include unwanted thoughts about harm, sexuality, relationships, religion, morality, contamination, mistakes, or identity. ERP focuses less on proving the thought wrong and more on changing the fear-based response to the thought.
What are common OCD compulsions?
Compulsions can include checking, washing, confessing, reassurance seeking, mental review, rumination, avoidance, comparing feelings, Googling symptoms, repeating phrases, testing attraction, asking others for certainty, or trying to neutralize an unwanted thought.
Is ERP scary?
ERP can be challenging. But it should not be reckless or forced. Exposures are planned collaboratively and matched to your goals. The focus is on building willingness, reducing avoidance, and practicing new responses over time.
Do you treat harm OCD?
Yes. Harm OCD can involve unwanted fears of hurting yourself or someone else, losing control, acting on an impulse, or being secretly dangerous. Treatment focuses on reducing compulsions, reassurance seeking, avoidance, and mental checking.
Do you treat contamination OCD?
Yes. Contamination OCD may involve fears about germs, illness, bodily fluids, chemicals, dirt, or spreading harm to others. ERP often targets washing, cleaning, avoidance, checking, and repeated reassurance seeking.
Do you treat relationship OCD?
Yes. ROCD can involve doubts about love, attraction, compatibility, commitment, or whether a relationship feels right. ERP can help reduce checking feelings, comparing, confessing, reassurance seeking, and compulsive analysis.
Can ERP help Pure O?
Yes. “Pure O” often includes mental compulsions rather than visible rituals. Treatment may target rumination, mental review, self-reassurance, thought neutralizing, checking feelings, and attempts to solve uncertainty internally.
PTSD and Prolonged Exposure questions
Do you treat PTSD?
Yes. I provide therapy for PTSD and trauma-related symptoms, including avoidance, intrusive memories, nightmares, emotional numbing, hypervigilance, guilt, shame, and difficulty feeling safe after trauma.
What is Prolonged Exposure therapy?
Prolonged Exposure, or PE, is an evidence-based treatment for PTSD. It helps people approach trauma memories and avoided reminders in a structured way so the brain can relearn safety and reduce avoidance.
Is Prolonged Exposure the same as ERP?
They are related but not identical. ERP is commonly used for OCD and anxiety disorders. PE is specifically designed for PTSD. Both involve approaching feared experiences and reducing avoidance. But the structure and clinical targets are different.
Will I have to talk about the trauma?
In PE, trauma memory work may be part of treatment when appropriate. This is done in a planned, structured, and collaborative way. The goal is not to overwhelm you; it is to help your brain process the trauma differently over time.
Anxiety disorder questions
Do you treat illness anxiety or health anxiety?
Yes. Illness anxiety treatment may focus on fear of disease, repeated body checking, reassurance seeking, medical Googling, scanning for symptoms, avoiding doctors, overusing medical visits, or feeling unable to tolerate uncertainty about health.
Do you treat generalized anxiety disorder?
Yes. Generalized anxiety disorder often involves chronic worry about work, health, family, money, relationships, safety, or the future. Treatment may focus on worry patterns, intolerance of uncertainty, avoidance, reassurance seeking, and overplanning.
Do you treat panic disorder?
Yes. Panic disorder treatment may include learning how panic works, reducing fear of physical sensations, practicing interoceptive exposure, and changing avoidance patterns that make panic feel more dangerous over time.
Do you treat agoraphobia?
Yes. Agoraphobia can involve avoiding driving, stores, crowds, freeways, restaurants, elevators, public transportation, open spaces, being alone, or places where escape feels difficult. Treatment focuses on gradual practice and reducing safety behaviors.
Do you treat specific phobias?
Yes. Specific phobias may involve flying, driving, vomiting, needles, blood, medical procedures, animals, heights, elevators, storms, choking, or other feared situations. Exposure therapy is often used to build tolerance and reduce avoidance.
What if I keep Googling symptoms or asking for reassurance?
That pattern is common in OCD, illness anxiety, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety. Treatment helps identify when reassurance, checking, and researching are keeping the fear cycle alive, then builds new ways to respond.
Getting started
What happens in the first session?
The first session focuses on your symptoms, history, triggers, avoidance patterns, compulsions, safety behaviors, trauma reminders, goals, and treatment fit. You should leave with a clearer plan for next steps.
How often do sessions happen?
Frequency depends on the condition, severity, goals, and treatment plan. Some clients benefit from weekly therapy. Others may start with more frequent sessions during active ERP or trauma-focused treatment, then reduce frequency as symptoms improve.
Do you accept insurance?
Insurance and private-pay options may vary. Visit the fees and insurance page for current information about rates, superbills, and accepted insurance options.
How do I know whether this is the right fit?
A free consultation can help clarify whether your symptoms fit OCD, PTSD, panic disorder, agoraphobia, illness anxiety, generalized anxiety, a specific phobia, or another concern, and whether Whatif Therapy is an appropriate next step.
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