Escondido, California
Exposure therapy for anxiety and OCD
Exposure with Response Prevention, the treatment with the strongest evidence behind it for anxiety, OCD, and trauma. For children, teens, and adults across North County San Diego and southwest Riverside County.
What it is
How exposure therapy helps
Exposure with Response Prevention is an empirically validated treatment for anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and trauma, and it is the method behind our selective mutism work. The exposure piece involves approaching situations that typically cause anxiety. The response prevention piece involves refraining from avoidance or giving in to compulsions.
Many people fall into the habit of avoidance or compulsive behavior because it seems to reduce anxiety in the moment. It increases anxiety in the long term. If someone feels anxious about going to school and stays home, the anxiety is reduced that day and worse the next, which is how chronic absence begins.
What it treats
What exposure therapy treats
Anywhere avoidance has taken hold, the same method applies. The goal is getting back the things anxiety has been shrinking: school, friendships, ordinary outings, speaking up.
Exposure therapy is delivered from our Escondido office and in the community, for families across North County San Diego including San Marcos, Vista, Poway, Rancho Bernardo, Ramona, and Fallbrook, as well as Temecula and southwest Riverside County. It also runs as our exposure group and each summer as Outside Voice Selective Mutism Camp.
Where the question is what is driving the anxiety rather than how to treat it, start with psychological testing. Our guides for parents cover anxiety, avoidance, and school refusal in more detail.
What makes this different
An office is not real life
Anxiety rarely shows up in a quiet room with a therapist. It shows up in the classroom, at the checkout counter, at the party. So when you are ready, we leave the office.
The settings are chosen deliberately: places where you have to speak to somebody to get something you want.
The reward is built into the exposure and it arrives immediately.
Proving to yourself that you can complete tasks that have traditionally been worrisome increases confidence and decreases anxiety. We walk right alongside you, at a pace you set.
Common questions
Before you call
Is exposure therapy going to make my child more anxious?
Exposure is gradual and collaborative, never a surprise. Your child helps build the list of situations and knows what is coming. The short term discomfort is the mechanism: each completed step teaches the brain that the feared outcome does not arrive, which is what lowers anxiety over time.
Who decides how fast it goes?
You do. The feared situations are put in order together, from mildest to hardest, and work starts at the bottom with something uncomfortable but manageable. Each step is repeated until it stops feeling like much, and that is the signal to move up. Nothing on the list is a surprise, because you helped build it. Treatment is provided by Dr. Joanna Kennedy, our licensed clinical psychologist.
How is this different from just facing your fears?
Facing a fear once, unprepared, usually confirms that it was as bad as expected. Exposure therapy is structured, graded, and paired with skills for managing the discomfort, and the response prevention piece matters as much as the exposure: refraining from the avoidance or compulsion is what allows the anxiety to come down on its own.
Do you really leave the office?
Yes, when a client is ready. We go into schools, because that is where avoidance costs a child the most, and we pick places where you have to speak to get something you want. The reward is built into the exposure and arrives immediately.
Sessions run from our Escondido office and out into the community across North County San Diego, including San Marcos, Vista, Poway, Rancho Bernardo, and Ramona, as well as Temecula and southwest Riverside County.
Does it work for adults?
Yes. Most of our work is with children and teens, and the same method works at forty as at nine. What changes is the pacing and who drives the plan. See anxiety counseling.
What if my child will not speak at all?
That is selective mutism, and it is one of our core specialties. The approach is the same graded exposure, adapted for a child who cannot yet answer questions out loud, and it runs intensively each summer at Outside Voice Selective Mutism Camp.
How long does treatment take?
It depends on the individual and the severity. Anxiety disorders are among the most treatable conditions in mental health, and your clinician will discuss expected length at intake rather than guessing beforehand. Our guides for parents cover anxiety and avoidance in more detail.
What if it turns out not to be anxiety?
That happens, and it is why we evaluate before treating. Attention, learning, and developmental differences can look like anxiety from the outside and can also sit alongside it. Where that question is open we offer psychological testing, including autism and ADHD evaluations.
From our clinical team
More on anxiety and avoidance
Growth begins at the end of your comfort zone
Exposure therapy for children, teens, and adults at our Escondido office, serving North County San Diego and southwest Riverside County.
No waitlist · Licensed clinical psychologist · Also offering anxiety counseling and selective mutism treatment
Climb on.