ReImagine Therapy

ReImagine Therapy I'm Jessics Hayes and my company is ReImagine Therapy, where I provide Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Free 15 minute phone consultation before any assessment appointment to make sure I can help with what you're looking for support with.

12/11/2025

Just a little analogy to hopefully help you to know what approach we are aiming for when we acknowledge intrusive thoughts with minimal engagement in OCD.

Perhaps you can imagine someone with extremely problematic views and no desire to consider any alternatives, who speaks loudly about what they believe in and will not be swayed against it.

You would realise quite quickly that they are not receptive to listening to alternatives. You might try hard to argue with them at first, until you realise how it makes them double down and even get more extreme in their argument. You then might run away but they will likely chase you to continue to argue with you.

If you start to acknowledge that you hear them and offer minimal engagement after that, they might initially get louder to try to prompt you to get involved in the discussion. After a while, they might get quieter in their ranting and eventually get distracted. Meanwhile, you can perhaps try to tune them out and spend your time focusing on things that you actually want to think about. You can still hear them, but you focus your attention elsewhere, even if you occasionally catch a few words and tune back in. You just realise you are doing this and then refocus on what you are doing.

This is what we want to do with intrusive thoughts. They might feel scary and strong but they aren't important. Your threat response thinks they are, so it will try to push them forwards and panic if it thinks that you are ignoring the threat completely. So acknowledge it and keep refocusing on what you find important and interesting.

09/11/2025

Have you tried to challenge your OCD but not found much improvement? Perhaps this is why. It is important to understand everything that is maintaining your OCD and be consistent with challenging all of the strings.

You will still get intrusive thoughts because these are normal and they may still make you anxious for a whole because they have had such a big impact for so long, but the OCD should feel less and less like a part of how you have to live your daily life.

OCD can get better. It may be a neurotype (more evidence is leaning towards this than an acute mental health problem) but it doesn't mean it has to rule your life.

Do you have any questions about OCD? I would love to answer them.

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06/11/2025

This is a common fear when someone changes compulsions and starts to look at intrusive thoughts and fears differently.

We are still letting you live by your values of being safe and empathic and good at managing risk, we are just toning it down to where it is helpful and not so overly cautious that it actually leads to not being able to differentiate levels of risks.

06/11/2025

Some people find it really hard to believe me when I say that intrusive thoughts, no matter how disturbing, are completely normal and do not make them a bad person. Perhaps this can put it into context for you.

Not everyone will get thoughts that get this extreme and this vivid, but they are much more common than you would think, most people either dismiss them (even though they are scary) or even turn them into money.

05/11/2025

A little bit of insight into how we handle what we hear as therapists so that you can feel more confident in using therapy for your needs.

04/11/2025

I can't tell you how many of my clients have had encounters by all sorts of professionals that left them feeling confused and misunderstood when it comes to OCD.

Often, responses are 'you don't wash your hands enough' or 'you are not tidy enough, so it can't be OCD'.

This is such a huge misconception about OCD. I have specialised in working with OCD for years now and the most common forms of it i encounter are ones with distressing harm or se*ual intrusions and many mental rituals, rather than cleaning.

I do not mean this to disrespect these professionals- people working within medicine and mental health have to know about so many things, I do want to highlight a need for better training around recognising OCD and in working with it, due to how much harm i see caused by a lack of knowledge, and to encourage people to get a second opinion if they feel they may have OCD.

03/11/2025

This is a common question I get: what to do exposure work on when many compulsions are mental and where there aren't a load of set rituals or checking behaviours.

The answer is usually by working on lining up behaviours to what they would be without the OCD- choosing what to watch based on interest, instead of the OCD, going places because they are convenient, instead of to avoid certain times and places.

You might also find that by confronting the avoidance, compulsive behaviours then try to pop up more, such as monitoring groinal responses, neutralising images, focusing attention in specific ways, asking for reassurance. And then you can target these too.

We aim to move toward a life where you are living according to your values, what you enjoy and what you find important, not to be controlled by the OCD- either by avoiding things/doing compulsions, or by forcing yourself to do things just because they are in your hierarchy of difficult things to do.

29/10/2025

This is a type of thinking style that isn't an intrusion or compulsion per se, but definitely can impact how your brain analyses and responds to things. Working to break habits around picking apart emotions and using them to influence how you assess things can really help with anxiety in general, and make ERP easier when you do it. Because if your brain thinks that emotions are accurate, sitting with higher levels of anxiety during ERP is going to be really tough.

28/10/2025

Instead of a 'pure' ERP approach to working with OCD, this is what I have found helpful in my years of treating the huge range of OCD themes and presentations. This isn't to say that ERP can't work alone, but I have noticed just how ingrained into personality and general life that OCD is, and this approach tends to help people to help all themes of it. It is a CBT-based approach at its core, but also incorporates ACT and compassion-focused therapy, and always with a nerurodivergent lens too. I
I would love to answer any questions from people with OCD or other therapists about this approach.

21/10/2025

Have you heard this about themes for intrusive thoughts in new parents?

They can be really scary, especially at a time when people talk about mum instincts or parenting instincts because it can lead to a worry that these thoughts are linked to those and therefore valid, when they are all OCD thoughts.

Having previous losses and/or difficulties in conceiving, or even just a different way of getting a baby than the most talked about ways, can all lead to an increased risk of postnatal mental health difficulties. If you are someone who has an OCD-type brain, it might mean that your OCD tries to get louder and that these themes start to pop up for you.

Remember, intrusive thoughts are completely normal and are not things that need to be fixed or looked into. Compulsions can feel helpful in the moment but can make things really hard in the long term. New parents are already vulnerable due to life changes, stress, hormones, and new responsibilities, so it can be even harder to not panic at these thoughts.

If you notice these are making life even harder than it needs to be, please reach out for some support.

19/10/2025

Worrying about low mood and depression can be a theme of OCD in itself. But it is really normal to feel this way when you are deep in the trenches of OCD.

Keeping this in mind when challenging the OCD can be really useful, targeting both together.

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