What We Treat

OCD is an anxiety disorder characterized by distressing and unwanted thoughts, images, or impulses (obsessions) that result in strong urges to engage in repetitive thoughts or behaviors (compulsions) to reduce this distress.

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Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) considered to be the most effective treatment for OCD (with or without medication) based on extensive clinical research over the past 30 years.

Panic Disorder is characterized by unexpected and distressing symptoms (such as pounding heart, dizziness, difficulty breathing, intense anxiety, fear of dying or losing control) and fear of having more panic attacks. Fear can build over time and lead to a person avoiding situations, activities, or places that are identified with past panic attacks. 

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Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is considered the most effective treatment for panic disorder (with or without medication).  CBT teaches individuals to understand the nature of panic and how to overcome it. 

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is often pervasive worrying about many different problems or challenges, and it is associated with symptoms such as muscle tension, fatigue, irritability, restlessness, and headaches, as well as problems with sleep, digestion, and concentration.

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) teaches individuals strategies for dealing more effectively with uncertainty and worry, as well as relaxation and acceptance strategies n order to break the cycle of worry and to live their lives more fully.

Social anxiety disorder is characterized by excessive fear with social situations, including fears of interacting with, performing before, or being observed by other people.  Social inhibition, characterized by feelings of inadequacy and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, is common and can have devastating effects on relationships, careers, and quality of life.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) teaches individuals to change the way they think about social interactions (cognitive reframing) and to test and disconfirm their beliefs about feared consequences through graduated exposure to social situations. 

Specific Phobias are irrational fears of specific situations, places or things (animals, heights, flying, test taking, performance, etc.) characterize specific phobias. These phobias can lead to increasing avoidance of associated places or activities that result in significant interference with a person’s functioning, goals, and mood.  Though a person with a specific phobia often recognizes that their fear is excessive, this knowledge rarely helps them overcome their fears.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is considered the most effective treatment for specific phobias. CBT uses graduated exposure to help individuals dramatically change their emotional and physical experience of feared situations, places and things.  This allows them to get used to these fears so they no longer interfere with living life fully. Treatment is done with the help and support of an expert therapist, and the intensity of treatment can range from weekly sessions to daily sessions for more rapid change.

Infertility is a medical condition that touches all aspects of life. It may affect one's relationships with others, perspective on life, and feelings about oneself.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help you replace negative thought patterns with more positive, realistic ones. It also uses deep relaxation and breathing techniques to reuce anxiety.  CBT can be an effect therapy for people dealing with the stress, anxiety, worry, and depression infertility patients often struggle with.  It can also help to out your feelings, identify coping mechanisms, and work to find solutions to your difficulties.  

Eating disorders are often characterized by a disordered thinking in which shape, weight, and diet, are how a person evaluates him or herself. This can manifest itself  in many different ways, including, low weight and dietary restriction found in anorexia nervosa, in others. It can also lead to cycles of restriction/binge eating, and/or purging in bulimia/binge eating disorders. This causes of significant distress and functional impairment to the person and their loved ones.

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Cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to help people regain control of their eating patterns and address the underlying social and emotional triggers of restriction, bingeing, and purging. 

Individuals with Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) typically exhibit perfectionistic standards and/or “truth owning,” believing that the rigid rules they have implemented are the right rules to live by. Perfectionism takes the form of either needing to look a certain way, dress a certain way, have items aligned a particular way, maintaining clarity or cleanliness (not due to fears of contamination but because it SHOULD look a certain way), reading without errors, spending a superflouous amount of time beginning tasks or reviewing completed tasks at work, or needing to possess something without flaws or imperfections. Perfectionistic individuals do not believe that “good is good enough.” 

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Cognitive behavioral therapy for focuses on learning to accept the imperfect world within which we all operate.

The therapists at NJPA specialize in treating Anxiety disorders including OCD, however they are also trained to provide traditional supportive talk therapy. Psychotherapy can be extremely helpful for dealing with everyday problems and problem solving solutions to a variety of life's challenges.

Negative thoughts about oneself, the world and the future can create feelings of despair, worthlessness and hopelessness. These thoughts and feelings can interfere with your quality of life or can affect your behavioral choices. Depression can be particularly severe when suicidal thoughts are present.

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Cognitive behavioral therapy for depression focuses on challenging unhelpful, irrational thought patterns. Additionally, there is a strong behavioral component intended to help people make more productive behavioral decisions.