Take your life back from OCD and anxiety with professional help
Evidence-based mental health treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder using Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) with licensed therapist, Teva Johnstone, Licensed Clinical Social Worker 103826
IN PERSON & ONLINE THERAPY IN CALIFORNIA
Teva Johnstone, Licensed Therapist in California
Welcome — I’m Teva. I help people reclaim their lives from mental health challenges. I’m so glad you landed here.
Help for OCD and Related Disorders
You are in the right place if you would like help with obsessive compulsive disorder, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, or various types of compulsive behavior, including body-focused repetitive behavior (skin picking, hair pulling) and technology-focused impulse control issues (“internet addiction”).
I can assist your recovery from entrenched and time consuming habits, rituals, and avoidance. It’s okay if you’ve been doing your routine for years, and it’s okay if OCD isn’t the only thing that troubles you. Together we will seek to understand your behavior, and we will take concrete steps towards your healing. The next chapter starts now.
Motivations for change
I wonder if you’re exploring therapy because you realize your current methods—while well intentioned—only temporarily ease the discomfort. Perhaps you wonder if avoidance is really helping because after all this time, the obsessions and fears have only grown. Maybe you’re curious about a life you face instead of one you run from?
If you’re here because you’re considering a different way to manage fear, you’ve already taken one step towards recovery. If you’re beginning to accept your old ways aren’t serving you, this shift in perspective is the foundation of what’s to come…
Tools I use to help
As a licensed therapist with specialized training in the treatment of OCD, compulsive tech use, trichotillomania (hair pulling), excoriation disorder (skin picking), and anxiety disorders, I provide compassionate and evidence-based therapy guided by your goals.
My approach integrates highly effective Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) combined with Motivational Interviewing and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) techniques. ERP is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that is structured yet personalized and flexible. Treatment planning is collaborative and rooted in your unique needs, cultural values, and ideas about meaning and purpose.
My therapeutic style
With over a decade of experience as a therapist, my style is warm, direct, and forward moving. When using structured therapies like ERP, I maintain a relational approach and I am influenced by psychodynamic scholars like Nancy McWilliams.
My clients say they feel validated and safe to share things that are embarrassing, scary, or taboo. Many clients have come to me specifically requesting to be challenged so they could grow. While in treatment with me clients are supported as they do the hard work of breaking free from OCD and related disorders.
Clinical concerns I work with
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Perinatal or Postpartum Anxiety and OCD
Child and Teen Anxiety Disorders
Social Anxiety
Generalized Anxiety
Hoarding Disorder
Trichotillomania (hair pulling)
Excoriation Disorder (skin picking)
Compulsive Smartphone Use (internet addiction)
Parenting Challenges
Take the first step
From experience, I know it can be hard to imagine recovery when you’ve been stuck in obsessive compulsive patterns for a while. It’s important to know you aren’t alone and highly effective treatment is available.
OCD treatment is a learning process, one in which we learn to live with uncertainty, we learn we can face things that challenge us, and we learn we have choice (even when it really feels like we don’t).
Begin your mental health recovery with help from an OCD specialist
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ERP Therapy for OCD & Anxiety Disorders
OCD and anxious distress impact the fullness of our lives, but effective treatment is available. Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) helps people confront fears and change stuck patterns within a supportive environment. By gradually exposing yourself to situations that produce anxiety while at the same time limiting compulsive rituals and avoidance, ERP treatment builds courage, resilience, and helps you develop a different relationship with uncertainty. It’s possible to find freedom and learn to hold your fears with flexibility and gentleness. I can help.
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Therapy for Postpartum Anxiety & OCD
It’s normal to be extra cautious about the health and safety of your baby. A woman’s focus on keeping her child safe is hardwired into many of us and a very important quality in infant care. With some new mothers, however, this natural instinct can reach levels that begin to compromise your mental health and ability to function. If you are experiencing intense anxiety or change in behavior that concerns you or your family, reach out for help from a trained professional. I practice from an attachment lens and have special knowledge and experience with breastfeeding mothers.
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SPACE Treatment for Child Anxiety & OCD
You can support your child’s tendency for extreme worry, avoidance, and compulsive behavior with family-centered evidence-based therapy. I treat anxiety and OCD in children and teens using the SPACE Program (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and ERP (Exposure and Response/Ritual Prevention), a form of CBT. The approaches I use are compassionate and empowering. As a parent myself, I know you need high quality treatment with evidence that it actually works.
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Holistic Therapy for Compulsive Tech Use
Mental health treatment is available for compulsive use of your smartphone, social media, online gaming, online gambling, online shopping, and other forms of obsessive-compulsive digital behavior that concern you. If you want to reverse your virtual habits, therapy can help you achieve concrete behavioral change while simultaneously addressing the underlying issues that may accompany your compulsive use. If you feel addicted to your phone, it is possible to take your life back. If you’re tired of hacks that don’t work in the longterm, reach out for help from a therapist who has a deep understanding of the issue and can help you break free.
“I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it.”
—Anna Lembke, MD
