News & Resources
Common misunderstandings about OCD
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition that is often misunderstood by the general public. Many people associate OCD with cleanliness or the need for order and organization, but in reality, OCD is much more complex than that. Here are some of...
Misophonia: Treating sensitivity to sounds and other stimuli
Misophonia is a relatively new term in the field of psychology that refers to a condition in which certain sounds or noises trigger intense emotional and physical responses in affected individuals. People with misophonia often experience an overwhelming feeling of...
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for post-partum OCD: The transition to parenthood is difficult
When you have OCD, the transition to parenthood isn’t always easy. It can be particularly difficult when you suffer from post-partum OCD, which involves having obsessive fears about harming your baby because of an overwhelming sense of responsibility and duty toward your child.
Hit and Run OCD: Exposing Yourself to Your Fears
It’s Saturday morning and you’re sitting at home reading the paper. Suddenly your mind starts to play tricks on you, causing you to doubt your own experience. You start to doubt whether you did indeed turn the stove off before heading out the door, so you have no choice but to return home to check—even though logically you already know it should be fine…
The Importance of Seeing an OCD Specialist for False Memory OCD
If you suffer from what has been dubbed false memory OCD, it can be confusing to figure out if you actually have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or if what you are experiencing falls under an entirely different subtype.
Can Habit Reversal Help Break the Cycle of Skin-Picking?
Skin-picking, also known as dermatillomania and excoriation, is a body-focused repetitive disorder (BFRD) in which the person has an irresistible urge to scratch, pick, or scrape their skin on a near-constant basis.
Depression: Effective Treatments including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Behavioral Activation
You know that you feel depression, and you may have even gotten treatment with pharmaceuticals or therapy. But what works to treat depression? We will look at the evidence behind Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Behavioral Activation (BA).
Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Treatment and Options
People who suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) are so distressed about their appearance that it can interfere with day-to-day life. BDD can cause people to obsessively check themselves in mirrors, avoid social interactions, and even result in self-harm.
Understanding Hemophobia: Blood-Injury Phobia
Can’t stand the sight of blood? Here’s what you need to know about treatment for blood-injury phobia. If you have blood-injury phobia, the sight of blood makes you faint or feel nauseous, then you’re in the right place. You need to know about treatment for blood-injury phobia and what options are available so that you can decide which treatment or combination of treatments will be most effective in reducing or eliminating your fear of blood and injury.
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP): The Treatment of Obsessional OCD
Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is the first-line treatment of choice for most people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). When combined with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), ERP can be particularly effective in the treatment of obsessional OCD, commonly known as Pure O. In this article, we’ll take a look at what ERP/CBT is, how it works and why it works, and how to go about getting help from your doctor and setting up an ERP/CBT treatment plan that works best for you.
One Million Steps for OCD Walk, Austin, TX
October 1, 2022 we got to attend and sponsor the Million Steps 4 OCD Walk in Austin, Texas hosted by OCD Texas, an official affiliate of the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) and a nonprofit support and advocacy organization for people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and related disorders.
Emetaphobia: Overcoming the Fear of Vomiting
The fear of vomiting, also known as emetaphobia, can be extremely debilitating and cause sufferers to miss work or school due to their fear that they may vomit in public. To overcome this overwhelming fear and keep from missing out on life’s opportunities, try these simple steps to help you understand your emetaphobia treatment options and overcome this debilitating phobia once and for all.
Compulsive Staring OCD: A lesser-known subtype of OCD
While many people are familiar with the most common form of OCD, washing and cleaning compulsions, other subtypes of OCD may be less well-known, such as compulsive staring. The hallmark symptom of compulsive staring OCD is the excessive, intrusive thoughts or urges to stare at others in inappropriate or uncomfortable ways, especially strangers on the street or in public places.
When High-Functioning Perfectionism Breaks Down
Are you a high-functioning perfectionist? Being highly successful and very good at what you do is something to be proud of. But the unfortunate reality of being high functioning doesn’t always make it easy to recognize when seeking perfection is negatively affecting your life.
‘Just Right OCD’: A little-known form of OCD that’s more common than you think
'Just Right OCD': A little-known form of OCD that's more common than you think The term 'OCD' is often associated with people who are obsessively clean, with an excessive attention to detail, or who have a compulsion to order items in their environment. But not all...
Relationship OCD: A form of OCD that often damages the relationships where we most seek to be certain
Relationship OCD, or ROCD, refers to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) symptoms centered around relationships with partners, family members, friends and co-workers. As can be seen from the symptoms below, ROCD sufferers obsess over fears that they’re not in the right relationship or that taking some step in the relationship will be the wrong step.
5 Tips for Modifying Your Sleep Behavior for a Better Night’s Rest
Sleeping well can mean the difference between being alert, focused, and productive during the day and suffering from headaches, decreased cognitive function, and feeling irritable and moody. Unfortunately, many of us are getting less sleep than we need on a regular...
Habit Reversal: Treating Tics & Tourette’s
Tics are involuntary muscle movements or vocalizations that can affect the face, body, and even the limbs of someone with Tourette syndrome (TS). Tourette's has recently gained more recognition as the famous singer, Billie Eilish, has been public with her experiences...
The Superbill vs. the Receipt: What’s the Difference?
The Superbill vs. the Receipt: What's the Difference? You’ve probably heard the terms Superbill and receipt before, but do you know what the difference between them are? If you’re not sure, this article will help you find out. What is a Superbill? A Superbill, also...
So You Need a Mental Health Provider… Now What?
So You Need a Mental Health Provider... Now What? There are many different types of mental health providers, each with their own specialties and skill sets. This can make it difficult to know which one you need for your unique situation, but don’t worry! We’re here to...
Levels of Mental Health Care: Inpatient, Residential, Partial Hospitalization, Intensive Outpatient, Group Therapy, and Individual Therapy
Understanding the different levels of mental health care can make all the difference in whether or not you receive proper treatment, or how quickly you recover from an episode of depression, anxiety, eating disorder, or substance abuse. Although mental health...
Understanding mental or behavioral health benefits
Understanding mental or behavioral health benefits There are many aspects of health insurance that consumers should understand, but mental or behavioral health benefits often get overlooked. If you have questions about how your plan handles issues such as depression...
7 Ways Yoga Transforms Your Mental Health
7 Ways Yoga Transforms Your Mental Health Yoga has become increasingly popular in the Western world, but many people still wonder why exactly they should practice it. While some of the reasons are physical and can be easily quantified by the number of calories burned...
A Rewarding Career in Behavioral Health: We’re Hiring Licensed Clinical Psychologists!
A Rewarding Career in Behavioral Health: We're Hiring Licensed Clinical Psychologists! Do you have an interest in human behavior and motivation? Is helping others the focus of your life? Do you thrive in an environment where you have the opportunity to make a tangible...
We’re excited to announce our expansion into psychological/neuropsychological testing and behavioral treatment!
We’re excited to announce that we’ve expanded our services and now offer psychological/neuropsychological testing as well as behavioral treatment! We’ve been providing behavior therapy to the community since 2018, but we know more people are in need of help than we...
OCD: How to Overcome Your Fears
OCD: How to Overcome Your Fears Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder where people have unwanted thoughts and behaviors that feel out of control and cause significant distress or difficulty functioning in daily life. The condition often runs in...
Get to Know Us: Better Living’s Mission, Vision, and Values
Every organization must have a guiding set of values and a vision to orient itself though grow, changes, and challenges. This is the mission, vision, and values that orient us at the Better Living Center for Behavioral Health. Vision: Better Living for a Better World....
Mindfulness as a Mediator Between Trauma Exposure and Mental Health Outcomes
The prevalence of traumatic events among adults in the United States range from 40-90%. The highest prevalence is seen in veterans or current individuals in the armed forces. Exposure to traumatic events, such as being in war, can lead to the development of mental...
LGBTQ populations: Psychologically vulnerable communities in the COVID-19 pandemic
The novel COVID-19 outbreak escalated the mental health crisis of the LGBTQ+ community. These crises include an increase in suicidality, anxiety, PTSD, and depression confounded with prior psychological effects such as pre-existing social inequality. Social distancing...
School-Based Racial Microaggressions
Research has shown that African American youth are exposed to approximately 33% more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) than rates of Caucasian children (Woods-Jaeger et al., 2021). ACE’s are potentially traumatic events that take place during childhood and include...
Measuring Outcomes: Reducing harmful outcomes associated with treatments
Despite numerous systematic efforts to assess the efficacy of structured treatment protocols, there has been little research done on how treatment interventions could be potentially harmful to clients. Treatment interventions are not assessed thoroughly, nor have...
Trichotillomania: What is problematic hair-pulling?
Trichotillomania (TTM) is currently classified as an impulse-control disorder. TTM entails the phenomenon of repetitive hair pulling that results in hair loss. The diagnostic criteria for TTM include: an increased level of tension immediately before hair pulling or...
Differences in Early and Late Onset OCD
Pinto et al. (2006) defined OCD as “a neuropsychiatric condition characterized by recurrent intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors that the individual feels driven to perform (compulsions)” (pg.1 ). The researchers sought to investigate predictors...
Identifying and Treating Race-based Trauma
Identifying race-based trauma in therapy.
Offering Your Anxious Clients the Standard of Care
Offering Your Anxious Clients the ‘Gold Standard’ of Care Exposure therapy has long been supported as the ‘gold standard’ treatment for anxiety disorders. Despite strong empirical support for the effectiveness of exposure...
Racial Bias and Ethnic Disparities in Health Services
For centuries, women of color have experienced a prevailing and insidious disparity in their reproductive healthcare. Social and structural factors of minorities have been negatively impacted in the flowing ways: fewer neighborhood health services are available, less...
Postpartum OCD
When we hear “postpartum” it is usually followed by “depression”. While the postpartum period IS often associated with depression, other disorders are overlooked. Outside the scope of obsessions harming infants, the effects of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) have...
Can mindfulness help with anxiety and depression?
According to Google Trends, “Mindfulness” has become an increasingly popular search term over the past decade, and a variety of resources are available to date, including books, blogs, videos, and courses. In addition to its popularity, mindfulness has been studied...
Contamination OCD in Adolescents: Treatment with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) describes a condition in which an individual has uncontrollable thoughts and/or behaviors (i.e., compulsions) that are problematic on an ongoing basis (National Institute of Mental Health), and these symptoms can be experienced by...
Evidence-based Treatments for PTSD: Prolonged Exposure and Behavioral Activation
Many people witness or experience some kind of traumatic event during their lifetime; however, these events affect people in different ways. It is common for people who have witnessed or experienced a traumatic event to have some difficulty adjusting and coping, but...
Scrupulosity: When religion and morality become impairing
Although most people are familiar with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)—or at least have a general idea and may even feel that they personally have some OCD tendencies—a lesser known form of OCD exists called scrupulosity. Scrupulosity involves obsessions related...
Social Anxiety: Making a difference with exposure and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 12.1% of adults experience social anxiety disorder (SAD) at some time in their lives. Social anxiety disorder is characterized by a high degree of fear related to social situations which usually leads to avoidance...
Mindfulness: A practice of shifting attention
Mindfulness as a part of therapy is often used to help clients hone their ability to attend to their experience in a different way. As a part of "ACT" Acceptance and Commitment Therapy you may be asked by your therapist to practice mindfulness in the therapy room or...
What are you going to do about the thoughts and feelings that get in the way?
There are many different types of therapy you can choose from. Some of these therapies are well known as evidence-based and others, less so. We practice Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) along with other behaviorally-based methods. There is a great deal of research to support “ACT” (said as one word) and its effectiveness in treating a wide range of human suffering.
