Anxiety & OCD Treatment

You know the anxiety is a problem. Maybe you’ve known for a long time. The avoidance has crept in, the rituals have grown, the worry has become the background noise of your life, or your child’s life. You’re ready to do something about it, and you want treatment that actually works.

Anxiety disorders and OCD are among the most treatable conditions in mental health. The evidence base is strong, and the right approach makes a real difference.

I use Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with graduated exposure for anxiety, and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) for OCD, the gold standard treatments, adapted for each person’s pace and readiness.

If you haven’t been assessed yet or you’re unsure whether what you’re experiencing is an anxiety disorder or OCD, I offer comprehensive anxiety and OCD assessments for children, adolescents, and adults.

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What anxiety and OCD can look like

Anxiety and OCD wear a lot of different disguises. Here are some of the shapes they take, and what they often turn out to be. This is recognition, not diagnosis, but if a row sounds like you or your child, it is worth a conversation.

What you might notice	What it often is
Checking, redoing, or asking for the same reassurance again and again	OCD, where the relief never quite lasts and the ritual keeps growing
A child whose world is getting smaller: more refusals, more reassurance-seeking, more needing you close	Anxiety that has learned it can run the household, and can be taught to stand down
Cancelled plans and a slow no to the things you used to say yes to	Avoidance-driven anxiety that feeds on every situation you skip
A racing heart and the sense that something is about to go wrong, out of nowhere	Panic, which is frightening, common, and very treatable
Worry humming in the background of an otherwise capable life	Generalised anxiety, often invisible from the outside, including in high-functioning adults

What treatment covers.

What I use	What it does
CBT for anxiety	Identifying and restructuring the thought patterns that maintain anxiety, combined with graduated exposure to feared situations. This is the approach with the strongest evidence base for generalised anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder, separation anxiety, and specific phobias.
ERP for OCD	Exposure and Response Prevention is the first-line psychological treatment for OCD. It involves gradually facing the situations that trigger obsessions while resisting compulsions, building tolerance for uncertainty rather than trying to eliminate the distress.
Parent-coached exposure for children	Parents are central to treatment. I work directly with parents on reducing accommodation patterns, supporting brave behaviour, and building a home environment where anxiety doesn’t run the show.
School and workplace support	Recommendations for accommodations, coordination with teachers or employers, and strategies for managing anxiety in structured environments.

Tic disorders and trichotillomania share treatment lineage with OCD, CBIT (Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics) and Habit Reversal Training are sibling protocols to ERP. If that’s what you’re here for, more is on tics, Tourette syndrome & habit disorders.

Who this is for.

I work with children, adolescents, and adults. Some clients come to treatment after a formal assessment; others have known about their anxiety or OCD for years and are ready to start. Common reasons people begin therapy:

• Anxiety that’s limiting what you’re willing to do, avoidance is growing
• OCD rituals that are consuming significant time and energy
• A child whose world is getting smaller, more refusals, more reassurance-seeking, more accommodation
• Panic attacks that feel uncontrollable
• Social anxiety that’s affecting relationships or career
• Previous therapy that focused on talking about anxiety rather than treating it

Sometimes the anxiety or the rituals turn out to be sitting on top of an ADHD or autism that was never named. If that might be you, it’s worth reading about late diagnosis in adults.

If you’re a senior leader or high-functioning professional and the anxiety mostly looks invisible from the outside, there’s a page I wrote for executives that gets into that more directly, including the burnout-shaped anxiety that “take a break” doesn’t fix.

My training in anxiety and OCD.

I completed my postdoctoral fellowship at Mayo Clinic’s Pediatric Anxiety Disorders Clinic, where I led the 5-day intensive Parent-Coached Exposure Therapy (PCET) programme and co-developed the Mayo Clinic Anxiety Coach app. I also trained in OCD treatment at UNC Chapel Hill under Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz, one of the world’s leading OCD researchers.

That training shapes how I work: structured, evidence-based, and exposure-focused. I use the same protocols used at leading anxiety treatment centres, adapted for each person’s pace and context.

I am also a Professional Member of the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF). That connection keeps me part of the wider community working on this, and it reflects a commitment I hold: to treat OCD and the disorders related to it as carefully as they deserve.

What to expect.

Step	What happens
1. Free Meet & Greet 15 minutes, no charge	A short call to ask questions and see whether we fit, before committing to anything. Most people start here. Book your Meet & Greet.
2. First consultation typically SGD 700	The first session is usually up to two hours. I’ll ask about your anxiety or OCD, what it looks like day to day, how long it’s been present, what you’ve tried, and what gets in the way. For children, this includes time with parents. There are no surprises and no pressure, just a conversation to determine the right approach.
3. Active treatment 60–90-minute sessions, pro-rated at SGD 350 per hour	Treatment typically runs 8–16 sessions, depending on the severity and complexity. Sessions are structured, goal-oriented, and collaborative, you’ll know what we’re working on and why. For anxiety, we use graduated exposure. For OCD, we use ERP. For children, parents are involved throughout.

For the full picture, including how payment works and reduced-fee options, see the Fees page.

Book a Free Meet & Greet

If you’d rather start somewhere quieter than a phone call, the GAD-7 (general anxiety) and the DASS-21 (depression, anxiety, stress) are both validated short self-report measures, a few minutes each. Validated, not diagnostic. If you’re not sure what you’re carrying, start here, and if you’d like to read about whether we’re a good clinical fit before booking, I’ve written about that here.

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Common questions

What is ERP, and why does it work for OCD?

ERP stands for Exposure and Response Prevention. In plain terms, we gently and deliberately approach the things that set off the anxiety, and then we practise not doing the compulsion or avoidance that usually follows. It is the opposite of what the worry is asking you to do, which is exactly why it works. At a pace you set, it teaches your nervous system that the feared thing can be tolerated and that the fear passes on its own. It is the most well-supported treatment we have for OCD, and it sits at the centre of how I work.

How long does anxiety or OCD treatment usually take?

It depends on what we are treating and how long it has been part of your life. Focused work on one specific fear can move in a matter of weeks. Longstanding OCD or anxiety that runs through many parts of life takes longer, often a few months of steady weekly work. I will give you an honest sense of the shape of it early on, and we keep checking together that it is actually helping.

Do I need medication as well as therapy?

Not necessarily. For many people therapy alone does the work, and ERP in particular has strong evidence on its own. For others, medication alongside therapy makes the work more possible, especially when the anxiety is severe. I do not prescribe, since that is a psychiatrist’s role, but if it seems worth exploring I will say so and help you find the right person. The two fit together well.

Can you help a child or teenager, not just adults?

Yes. I work across the lifespan, and a good part of my training and my career has been with children and teenagers. The approach is the same at its heart, just shaped for where the young person is, with parents brought into the work in a way that fits the child’s age.

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A few free screeners

Self-completed, instantly scored, no email required. They are a starting point for a conversation, not a diagnosis.

• PHQ-9 + GAD-7, adult depression and anxiety severity, in one form.
• DOCS, obsessive-compulsive symptoms by theme, for adults.
• SCARED, child and adolescent anxiety, including OCD-adjacent worry.

See the full screening-tools index →

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Next steps

Anxiety is very good at persuading you to wait. Fifteen minutes is enough to find out whether this is the right place.

→ Or see how I work →