Social phobia is the intense feeling of fear or anxiety in situations where a person may be scrutinized, evaluated, or judged by others.

Possible Social Phobia Triggers:

• Presentations.
• Eating in front of other people.
• Walking into a room where other people are gathered.
• Reading out loud.
• Checking out at a store.
• Asking a question to a teacher or salesman.
• Communicating your order from a menu to restaurant staff.

Some Behavioral Responses:

• Avoidance.
• Blushing.
• Shrinking.
• Shaking.
• Sweating.
• Trembling.
• Altered voice tone.
• Clinging to another person.
• Mind going blank.
• Avoidance of eye contact.

At A Little OCD Treatment Center, we love using a hands-on approach to overcoming the challenges of this disorder. We work with individuals one on one or in groups. This program teaches very important life skills that individuals can use throughout their lives. You will be challenged outside your comfort zone, but they do say your life starts one step outside your comfort zone! Are you ready?!

Frequent and unexpected episodes of intense fear that triggers a physical reaction in the body when there is no real danger or apparent cause. People with panic disorder worry about the onset of another attack and often significantly change their lives to avoid having another attack.

Panic Symptoms

• Palpitations, heart pounding, or accelerated heart rate.
• Sweating.
• Trembling or shaking.
• Sensations of shortness of breath.
• Feeling of choking.
• Chest pain or discomfort.
• Nausea or abdominal distress.
• Derealization (feelings of unreality) or depersonalization (being detached from oneself).
• Feeling dizzy, unsteady, lightheaded, or faint.
• Fear of losing control of going “crazy”.
• Fear of dying.
• Paresthesias (numbness or tingling sensation).
• Chills or hot flashes.

At A Little OCD Treatment Center, we’d love to help you with panic disorder! The treatment is focused on leaning into the symptoms of panic without coping them away. We work on this disorder from the core so you can slowly start regaining your life back without fear of an unexpected attack. Bring on the anxiety, you got this!

Produces persistent fear, worry, and a constant feeling of being overwhelmed about everyday things. The worry is excessive, difficult to control, and is often accompanied by psychological and physical symptoms.

Some Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

• Restlessness.
• Fatigue.
• Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank.
• Muscle tension.
• Sleep disturbance.
• Irritability.

It’s not uncommon to hear that many people are often misdiagnosed with GAD when they are really suffering from OCD and then there are some people who have both. While this can be confusing, it makes it even more important to work with someone who specializes in anxiety and OCD to ensure the correct treatment. While both disorders have many similarities, they differ in the content, the “stickiness” of the thoughts, and in that OCD contains compulsions. In GAD, worry is both the obsession and primary compulsion. For example, someone with GAD may have a thought that if they don’t do well on their test then they will fail the entire class. The person may then ruminate on failing and not passing the class to respond to the initial obsessive thought that came up.

At A Little OCD Treatment Center, we teach our clients about cognitive distortions, how to lean into anxiety, how to respond to anxious distress, and incorporate ERP into the sessions based upon the client’s individual treatment plan. If you need a little something more than talk therapy, this is your place!

Extreme fear of objects or situations that pose little or no danger but make you anxious. Individuals with specific phobia experience anxiety and panic attacks along with intense fear of exposure or anticipated exposure to the feared object or situation.

Subcategories of specific phobia:

• Animals (spider, insects, dogs).
• Natural environment type (heights, storms, water).
• Blood injection injury type (needles, invasive medical procedures).
• Situational type (airplanes, elevators, enclosed spaces).
• Other types of phobias that do not fit into the previous categories.

Symptoms may look like:

• Feeling of intense fear, anxiety, and panic immediately when exposed to or thinking about the trigger.
• You may know that your fears are out of proportion to the situation, but you have difficulty controlling them. Who ever said anxiety was rational?!
• Increased anxiety that perpetually worsens as the situation or object gets physically closer to you or in time.
• Avoidance of the situation or object or you endure it with intense fear.
• Fear causes clinically significant distress to your daily functioning.
• Physical reactions and feelings, for example, sweating, rapid heat beat, tight chest, or trouble breathing.
• Feeling dizzy, faint, or like you could vomit-especially around blood or injuries.