Jessica Drake – OCD / Anxiety Psychotherapist

Category: Uncategorized

  • Art, exposure work, and finding another voice

    I still have writer’s block but I can feel I’m becoming unstuck. I started the intro to my book again last night, writing a spin off of Romeo and Juliet. I am going to see a performance with Superman (Tom Holland) playing the man in question next month, so I…

  • Achievement and OCD dogma

    I felt low and listless yesterday after the buzziest of bank holiday Monday nights. A friend and I went to see John Vaillant and Colm Tóibín speak at the Cambridge Literary Festival, hosted at The Cambridge Union.  I was really heading to the event to see Colm Tóibín, who is…

  • “It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found”

    “It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found” Donald Winnicott I came across this quote looking at really early drafts of a novel I am working on, about a character I created with chronic self esteem issues. Making it as close to the Hero’s…

  • Reassurance – an unquenchable thirst

    Ultimately, we are not reassurable – so said my brilliant therapist who, alongside the right medication, helped me recover from OCD. Well, I say recover, I still get anxious, but she helped me come to terms with it – and when I say ‘it,’ I mean this concept of not…

  • Motherhood and OCD

    There was a fantastic report on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour regarding mental health in motherhood. I think it’s a real elephant in the room and needs to be talked about more, hence why I am covering it on this week’s blog post. The programme talked specifically about perinatal suicide,…

  • Dealing with uncertainty via Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

    One of the most intriguing and indeed difficult areas of OCD to treat is what might be called False Memory / Real Event OCD. To summarise, it is where your brain takes a real memory that is innocuous and turns it into something horrific that gives you crippling anxiety.  For…

  • How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) turned my OCD recovery corner

    I received an email from Russ Harris’ mailing list with a link to a free ebook which you may find helpful. Here it is – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sk6o4LB86JcXTkLGQMQxwRBgNfZI7_9O/view?pli=1 The link gives you five simple ways to defuse from thoughts, or what is known as cognitive defusion in the trade. Cogntive defusion basically…

  • Dreams + hurry + worry = OCD

    I have been having some really vivid dreams of late. I hope this is because I am sleeping deeply, although I do feel absolutely exhausted at night. Perhaps that is the Easter holidays with four year old twins.  The dreams are of course random but they seem to consist of…

  • Perception, shower heads and OCD

    Everything is perception – so say many spiritual teachers and writers who I happen to admire. To sum up (and apologies if this sounds a bit basic) change the lens of your circumstances, grab some gratitude for good measure, and have a better life. The great Chuck C of Alcoholics…

  • Frosties and King Lear

    Everything is connected, I think. I started this post early this morning and am finishing it before school pickup. I was really doubting what on earth I was saying, but have had a day to reflect, in amongst lots of jobs.  I said last week that I would tell you…