OCD Treatment · Ages 5 and up
OCD isn't a quirk or a preference. It's a loop that responds to the right care.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder can trap you in an exhausting cycle of unwanted thoughts and the rituals meant to relieve them. It's a serious condition, and one that responds well to the right, specialized treatment.
What it looks like
Obsessions and compulsions
OCD involves intrusive distress and the repetitive acts meant to quiet it. It can show up as some mix of the following.
- Intrusive, distressing thoughts, images, or urges
- Repetitive behaviors or mental acts to ease the distress
- Fears of contamination or getting sick
- Worries about harm coming to yourself or others
- A need for symmetry, order, or things feeling "just right"
- Rituals that bring only brief, fleeting relief
A proven path out of the loop
The gold-standard treatment for OCD is Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), a form of CBT that helps patients gradually face triggers without performing compulsions, retraining the brain's alarm system.
Our clinicians deliver ERP with the care and pacing it requires, so progress feels challenging but never overwhelming. OCD frequently co-occurs with anxiety, phobias, and depression, and we treat the whole picture. OCD often begins in childhood or adolescence, and we treat it across ages 5 and up, involving families where it helps.
ERP here is delivered by Shannon Aeschliman, LCPC, who specializes in it and offers it by secure telehealth across Illinois.
Our approach
How OCD treatment works at LodeStone
A whole-picture, coordinated path, not a one-size-fits-all plan.
Understand the whole picture
We start by learning how the obsessions and compulsions work for you, what triggers them, and how they shape your day.
Build ERP at the right pace
Exposure and Response Prevention helps you face triggers gradually without performing compulsions, retraining the brain's alarm system over time.
Coordinate the care
When medication helps, therapist and prescriber work in step. For children, we partner with families to support the work at home.
Not sure where to start? Get answers and we will match you with the right clinician.
We provide this care in person at our Hinsdale and Woodstock offices, and by telehealth across Illinois. We are in-network with BCBS PPO, Blue Choice, Aetna, Medicare, and United Behavioral Health, and we verify your benefits before your first visit.
A closer look
Understanding OCD, and why the right treatment matters so much
Nearly everyone has intrusive thoughts, odd, unwanted mental static that most minds dismiss without noticing. OCD is what happens when the brain flags that static as urgent: the thought feels dangerous or meaningful, distress spikes, and a compulsion, washing, checking, counting, confessing, mentally reviewing, brings relief that lasts just long enough to teach the loop to run again. The themes vary widely: contamination, harm, symmetry, morality and religion, relationships, health. The loop is the same.
Why well-meaning talk therapy can backfire
OCD is a case where the specific treatment genuinely matters. Open-ended talk about the content of obsessions, exploring what the thoughts might mean, offering reassurance that the fear won't come true, feels helpful and quietly feeds the disorder, because reassurance is itself a compulsion. That's why generic counseling often disappoints with OCD, and why we deliver Exposure and Response Prevention, the treatment with decades of evidence behind it.
ERP, at a humane pace
In practice, ERP is a collaboratively built ladder: facing triggers in graduated steps while resisting the compulsion, with your clinician beside you, so the brain's alarm system relearns what's actually safe. The skills are yours permanently, which is why ERP's results hold long after sessions end.
Your first steps
What to expect when you start
If you've been hiding rituals for years, walking in is the hard part. Here's what's on the other side of it.
Before your first visit
Start with the get-answers form or a phone call. ERP here is provided by a clinician who specializes in it, available by telehealth across Illinois, and we verify your insurance benefits before your first visit.
Your first session
You'll map the obsessions and compulsions together, including the mental ones no one can see. Nothing you say will shock your clinician, and the content of intrusive thoughts is never treated as a confession; it's a symptom, not a character reading.
The ladder, rung by rung
You and your clinician build an exposure hierarchy and climb it at a challenging-but-doable pace, with practice between sessions. For children, we also coach families on unwinding the accommodations OCD recruits them into.
Good to know
OCD treatment: frequently asked questions
What's the difference between OCD and liking things orderly?+
Pleasure versus prison. Someone who likes order enjoys a tidy desk; someone with OCD is punished by distress until the ritual is done, and the relief never lasts. If the behaviors are stealing time, an hour or more a day is a common benchmark, or you're organizing life around avoiding triggers, that's OCD territory, not personality.
My intrusive thoughts are disturbing. Do they mean something about me?+
No, and this fear is one of OCD's signature moves. Intrusive thoughts land on exactly what a person values most, which is why they horrify you, and being horrified is the proof they run against your character, not with it. Effective treatment doesn't analyze the thoughts; it retrains your alarm response to them.
Is ERP as hard as it sounds?+
It asks real effort, and it is nothing like being thrown at your worst fear. You build the ladder with your clinician, start where success is likely, and climb at an agreed pace. Most people find the anticipation was worse than any exposure, which, fittingly, is the whole lesson of ERP.
Can children have OCD?+
Yes; OCD often begins in childhood or adolescence, and it frequently pulls the whole family into rituals and reassurance. We treat kids from age five up with age-appropriate ERP, and we coach parents on stepping out of the loop supportively rather than abruptly.
What about medication for OCD?+
Certain medications reliably help, often making ERP more workable, and many people do best with both. Our prescribers and therapists coordinate under one roof, so the plan moves as one piece.
Will insurance cover OCD treatment, and does telehealth work for ERP?+
We are in-network with BCBS PPO, Blue Choice, Aetna, Medicare, and United Behavioral Health, and we verify your benefits before your first visit. ERP translates to video remarkably well, since exposures live in your real world, and our ERP specialist sees clients by telehealth across Illinois.