Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Therapy in London
With a National Award (BACP) for clinical excellence in counselling and psychotherapy service provision, our Director, Maggie Morrow, leads a team of expert therapists in London who specialise in helping individuals move beyond the grip of OCD, empowering you to regain control, challenge limiting patterns and build lasting change.
Finding the right therapist shouldn’t be overwhelming. With over 30 years of experience, our Clinical Directors will recommend a therapist who’s ideally equipped to help you overcome OCD.
We offer therapy rooms in Central London, the City of London and online therapy options.
How Can KlearMinds Help You Overcome OCD?
At KlearMinds, we’re dedicated to helping you break free from the limitations of OCD and build a more confident, empowered life. Our experienced therapists use a tailored blend of evidence-based therapies to help you understand and overcome the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours that disrupt your wellbeing.
We’ll help you develop a powerful, personalised toolkit to manage your OCD symptoms, both now and in the future. With the right guidance and strategies, meaningful change is absolutely possible.
Our expert therapists can help you:
- Understand the underlying causes and patterns of OCD, so you can take back control
- Identify triggers for obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours and learn how to reduce their power
- Challenge and reframe unhelpful thought patterns that fuel OCD cycles
- Break the link between anxiety and compulsions with proven, step-by-step strategies
- Reduce the emotional and physical impact of OCD through effective calming and grounding techniques
- Develop personalised strategies to navigate day-to-day challenges with greater ease and confidence
- Build a toolkit of techniques to maintain progress and prevent relapse over the long term
OCD Therapy Reviews
Meet Our Experienced Thearpists
Maggie Morrow
Founder of KlearMinds, Award Winning Psychotherapist, Counsellor & Life Coach
MSc Integrative Psychotherapy, BSc Psychology, Adv Dip, UKCPMaggie’s experience spans over 25 years.
Judy Harrison
Psychotherapist, Couples Therapist
PG Dip Psychotherapy, Dip Mediation, Mindfulness Meditation Cert, Cert Psychotherapy, UKCP, BACPJudy holds over 25 years experience.
Amanda James
Psychotherapist & Counsellor
Dip Therapeutic Counselling, PG Dip Attachment Theory, Mindfulness, Adv Dip, BACPAmanda holds over 13 years experience.
Jess Lammin
Psychotherapist (former Clinic Director)
MA Art Psychotherapy, BA, Certs, HCPC, BAATJess holds over 22 years of experience.
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Understanding Your OCD
When OCD takes hold, it can feel confusing, distressing, and relentless – but gaining insight into what’s happening is a powerful first step toward reclaiming control. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a mental health condition involving intrusive, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviours or mental rituals (compulsions) carried out to try to reduce the distress these thoughts cause.
Everyone experiences odd or intrusive thoughts from time to time – but for people with OCD, these thoughts can feel threatening, persistent, and hard to dismiss. Compulsions may bring short-term relief, but they can quickly become exhausting, time-consuming, and disruptive to daily life.
OCD can become a problem when:
- Obsessions or compulsions occur frequently and feel difficult to resist
- They interfere with your ability to work, socialise, or relax
- You feel stuck in a cycle of fear, doubt, and repetitive behaviour
- You struggle to trust your own mind, body, or sense of reality
OCD thrives on uncertainty and fear. The brain’s threat response system becomes overly sensitive, treating harmless thoughts as urgent dangers. This creates a cycle of anxiety and compulsive behaviours aimed at preventing something bad from happening – even if the fear has no basis in reality.
Although the OCD cycle can feel overwhelming, it is possible to break free. With the right support and strategies, you can learn to respond to obsessive thoughts in new ways, reduce the need for compulsions, and regain confidence in your own mind.
Symptoms of OCD
Our integrative therapy approach to OCD is designed to help you break free from the cycle of obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours, so you can regain trust in your own mind, reduce the hold of OCD, and move forward with greater freedom, resilience, and self-belief.
Below are some of the common symptoms people experience when struggling with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:
- Intrusive, unwanted thoughts that are repetitive, disturbing, or feel uncontrollable
- Compulsive behaviours or rituals such as checking, cleaning, counting, or repeating actions
- Mental compulsions, including repeated internal phrases, reviewing, or trying to ‘neutralise’ a thought
- Intense fear of harm – to yourself or others – often accompanied by extreme guilt or responsibility
- Fear of contamination (germs, dirt, illness) or feeling things are “not quite right”
- Avoidance of people, places, or situations that might trigger obsessions or compulsions
- Need for certainty or perfection, even in everyday tasks or decisions
- Constant reassurance-seeking, from yourself or others
- Distress when things aren’t in a specific order or symmetrical
- Time-consuming rituals that interfere with daily functioning and routines
- Feelings of shame, frustration, or isolation related to OCD symptoms
Main Types of OCD
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can take many forms. For some people, it involves persistent intrusive thoughts alone – sometimes known as “Pure O” – while for others, it includes repetitive behaviours or mental rituals performed to ease the anxiety these thoughts create. Here are some of the most common forms OCD can take:
- Intrusive Aggressive or Sexual Thoughts
Unwanted and distressing thoughts about causing harm to others or engaging in inappropriate acts, which are deeply out of character and cause intense fear or guilt. - Harm OCD
Persistent fears of accidentally or intentionally harming a loved one, often accompanied by compulsions to check, avoid, or mentally reassure oneself that no harm has occurred. - Checking OCD
Repeatedly checking that tasks have been completed correctly – like locking doors or turning off appliances – often driven by fear of disaster or making a mistake. - Contamination OCD
Intense fear of germs, illness, or unclean environments, often leading to compulsive washing, cleaning, or avoidance behaviours.
- Moral or Religious OCD (Scrupulosity)
Preoccupations around being “bad,” sinful, or immoral, often linked to guilt, fear of punishment, or excessive need for reassurance or confession. - Symmetry and Order OCD
A strong need for things to be aligned, arranged “just right,” or completed in even numbers, often to relieve discomfort or prevent something bad from happening. - Fear of Losing Control
Disturbing thoughts or images of acting out violently, shouting inappropriate things, or behaving irrationally in public – even though the person has no desire to do so.
These OCD subtypes can appear individually or in combination. While the content of obsessions and compulsions may differ, the cycle they create – fear, doubt, and repetitive behaviours – is the same.
Regardless of how OCD shows up, it’s important to remember: you are not your thoughts or compulsions. These patterns are treatable, and with the right therapy, you can gain the tools to challenge these patterns, reduce their impact, and experience more peace, confidence, and control in your daily life.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Which therapies are beneficial for OCD?
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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is shown to be particularly effective in the treatment of OCD. This type of counselling helps you understand how thoughts and behaviours interact with emotions and fuel OCD impulses. CBT can help you recognise unhelpful thinking and show you how to replace problematic thought patterns with balanced and more positive perspectives and behaviours which help reduce OCD. CBT may be used in conjunction with other types of therapy for OCD (see below).Integrative Psychotherapy: Because the main focus in CBT therapy for OCD is upon current triggers and how to understand and manage them, at KlearMinds, when helpful, we include psychotherapy approaches into the work that can help you address historic aspects of obsessive compulsive disorder, that are not addressed by a CBT approach alone. This means that you don’t just learn how to address current triggers but you also understand their problematic roots. This can lead to a more lasting and comprehensive addressing of OCD, which can powerfully help to prevent future relapses.
Psychotherapy for OCD can take place individually or in a group setting. These days Counselling for OCD is a label that may be used to describe a CBT or psychotherapy approach. As with psychotherapy or any counselling approach including cognitive behavioural therapy , it is important that the therapist is skilled and experienced in helping people successfully address OCD problems.
Exposure and Response Prevention: Exposure and response prevention counselling is sometimes used to treat OCD. This approach involves repeatedly exposing yourself to your obsession and then denying yourself the ritual compulsive action. For example, you might have to touch something you fear is dirty and then resist the urge to wash your hands afterward. This is something that usually occurs within a therapy session under the guidance of your therapist at first, but you might eventually be instructed to also do this on your own.At the beginning of therapy, you might be asked to list your rituals and obsessions and then rank each one according to the amount of anxiety it induces (for example, things like shaking hands or using the bathroom for those with a fear of germs). You might start by tackling something that only causes a moderate amount of anxiety and then work your way up to bigger issues. The pace of therapy is always designed to enable you to tackle rituals and obsessions at a manageable pace.
Get a Therapist Recommendation
Free Consultation: Get in touch for a personal recommendation OR to arrange a free telephone consultation with Maggie Morrow, Award Winning Therapist & KlearMinds Director.
Money back guarantee: 95% of our recommendations are successful. However, if your first appointment doesn’t feel like the right match – let us know. Based on your feedback, we can recommend a free appointment with a different therapist or if you prefer, you can request a refund.
Online Counselling Available
Our London Therapy Rooms
London City
11/12 Tokenhouse Yard
London
EC2R 7AS
Find us on what3words: ///mixer.deny.metro
Located within walking distance to several stations: Bank (2 minutes), Moorgate (4 minutes), Liverpool Street (6 minutes).
Central London
14 Hanover Square
London
W1S 1HN
Find us on what3words: ///player.tides.caged
Located 1 minute walk from Oxford Circus and 5 minutes’ walk from Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road.
Our Therapy Rooms are near:
Our Therapy Fees
Accepted Insurance Providers
Not Accepted Insurance Providers
Bupa UK, AXA, Healix, Vitality and Freedom
Professional Accreditations and Associations
Our hand-selected therapists have trained in the UK’s most respected institutions. They hold a minimum of 8 and up to 30 years clinical experience within the NHS, private and/or charitable sectors. They are registered with:
