Dr Celin Gelgec

Dr Celin Gelgec Welcome to a world of Education for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

When you’re a therapist who works with OCD, there’s an understanding that ERP is rarely as simple as it seems on paper. ...
19/08/2026

When you’re a therapist who works with OCD, there’s an understanding that ERP is rarely as simple as it seems on paper. We get taught that we need to…

Identify the fear.
Build the hierarchy.
Do the exposure.
Resist the compulsion.
Repeat.

And yet, anyone who has actually sat in the therapist chair when working with OCD knows that it rarely feels that clean. The difficult part often isn’t knowing what ERP is. It’s working out what’s actually happening in front of you.

Is this avoidance or a reasonable boundary? Is that question reassurance-seeking or does my client genuinely need information? Is the exposure targeting what’s driving the OCD or just what the symptom looks like? Am I helping my client stay with uncertainty or have I subtly started trying to make them feel better?

There isn’t always a neat rule that tells us what to do next. OCD treatment asks us to keep coming back to function, formulation and process, and to tolerate some uncertainty ourselves while we do it.

ERP might be simple to explain. Doing it well with an actual human being? That’s where the work is.

If you’ve often been wondering where to start, hit the link in my bio for **Foundations, ** my comprehensive training for clinicians who want to build confidence in working with OCD.

A reasonable question and a reassurance-seeking question when it comes to OCD treatment can sound exactly the same. That...
17/08/2026

A reasonable question and a reassurance-seeking question when it comes to OCD treatment can sound exactly the same. That’s what makes this tricky. The distinction isn’t necessarily in what your client is asking. It’s in what the answer is trying to achieve.

Is your client asking because they need information they genuinely don’t have? Or is OCD asking you to help settle something that already feels doubtful, uncomfortable or unresolved?

And sometimes, the harder question is this… Am I answering because my client needs the information, or am I answering because I can feel their discomfort and I want to make it go away?

Sometimes, reassurance in therapy sounds completely reasonable.

“Is this normal?”
“Do you think I did something wrong?”
“Would most people worry about this?”
“But realistically, how likely is it?”

The content of the question won’t always tell you what’s happening. We need to consider what’s happening underneath that. What happens after you answer? Does the information help the client move forward? Or does it buy certainty for a moment, before another question appears?

OCD treatment doesn’t mean refusing to answer every question. It means getting curious about what our answers are doing. Sometimes answering is good clinical care. And sometimes, without realising it, we’ve joined the compulsion.

07/08/2026

The Lindsay Clancy case is devastating. Three children lost their lives, a family has been changed forever, and a court is now considering incredibly complex questions about mental illness and criminal responsibility.

I’m not commenting on what happened in that home, and I’m certainly not diagnosing someone I’ve never assessed. But there are conversations surrounding this case that I think are important.

We need to understand the difference between postpartum OCD and postpartum psychosis. We need mothers experiencing frightening intrusive thoughts to know that having a thought is not the same as wanting it, intending it, or being instructed by it. And we need to make it safer for women to speak about what is happening in their minds without immediately fearing what others will think of them. But perhaps the question I keep coming back to most is much simpler:

Who is holding mum while everyone is holding the baby?

Maternal mental health cannot be an afterthought. And supporting mothers and supporting babies were never competing priorities.

06/08/2026

What is the single biggest thing that often gets skipped when it comes to assessing for OCD? Have a listen to find out.

Most professions don’t end meetings with the sentence:“I’ll take my turds with me.”But ERP isn’t most professions. Today...
04/08/2026

Most professions don’t end meetings with the sentence:

“I’ll take my turds with me.”

But ERP isn’t most professions. Today I was showing my colleague my latest acquisition for ERP during a meeting, and as the meeting wrapped up, I casually gathered them up and announced, “I’ll take my turds with me.”

Neither of us questioned how ridiculous that sentence sounded. It’s funny how quickly your version of “normal” changes when you spend your days helping people face the things OCD tells them they can’t.

One hour you’re discussing evidence-based treatment. The next you’re deciding which fake faeces looks the most realistic. And somehow, that’s just Tuesday.

ERP clinicians, what’s the weirdest sentence you’ve ever said at work that would sound completely unhinged to anyone outside our field?

One of the biggest misconceptions about treating OCD is that difficult cases are difficult because the therapist doesn’t...
02/08/2026

One of the biggest misconceptions about treating OCD is that difficult cases are difficult because the therapist doesn’t know enough.

In my experience, that’s rarely the whole story. More often, the challenge begins when doubt quietly enters the room. You start wondering whether the exposure is too much. Whether you should explain one more thing. Whether this client is different. Whether you should soften the task, answer the question, or make one small exception.

None of these decisions are inherently wrong. In fact, each one can sound thoughtful, compassionate and clinically reasonable in isolation. The difficulty is that OCD rarely pulls treatment off course in one obvious moment. More often, it happens through a series of small shifts that slowly move us away from the original formulation.

That’s why I think one of the most important skills in treating OCD isn’t just knowing what to do. It’s noticing the moment you stop trusting your own clinical judgement, and becoming curious about what’s creating that doubt. Because sometimes the thing that needs our attention isn’t the client. It’s what changed in the room. If you’re a mental health clinician wanting to book in for supervision, head to the link in my bio.

If OCD had a calendar, I think its schedule would be pretty full. If only cancelling those appointments were as easy as ...
31/07/2026

If OCD had a calendar, I think its schedule would be pretty full. If only cancelling those appointments were as easy as cancelling a coffee catch-up.

The reality is that OCD can make those invitations feel urgent, important, and impossible to ignore. That’s why recovery isn’t about having more willpower or simply deciding not to engage.

It’s about gradually learning the skills to recognise OCD’s invitations for what they are, learning tools to make room for the discomfort that follows, and practising not showing up every single time.

Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
Just one declined invitation at a time.

Which appointment did OCD try to book you into today?

You know what’s exhausting? It’s not just the intrusive thoughts. It’s feeling like every decision needs one more review...
30/07/2026

You know what’s exhausting? It’s not just the intrusive thoughts. It’s feeling like every decision needs one more review.

You send the text… then reread it.
You lock the door… then check it again.
You make a decision… then spend the next hour wondering if you got it wrong.

OCD quietly convinces you that certainty is just one more thought away. So you review it. Then you review the review. Then wonder whether you reviewed it properly 🫣. It’s a marathon that nobody else can see and it’s exhausting.

If this feels familiar, you’re stuck in a cycle where doubt keeps asking for “just one more check”, and somehow it never feels enough. Chasing that resolve is endless. That’s the cycle that needs breaking by learning tools to help you do so. Follow along for more.

One of the hardest parts of OCD is that from the outside, you can look completely fine. You can go to work. Smile. Hold ...
29/07/2026

One of the hardest parts of OCD is that from the outside, you can look completely fine. You can go to work. Smile. Hold a conversation. Pick the kids up from school. Laugh at dinner. Meanwhile, your brain has been running a marathon all day.

Replaying conversations.
Checking memories.
Arguing with intrusive thoughts.
Trying to work out if you’re a good person.
Trying to get just enough certainty to finally relax.

People often assume OCD is only what they can see. What they don’t see is the invisible effort it takes just to get through an ordinary day.

If this resonates with you, I hope you know this: You’re not “coping badly”. You’re carrying something that most people never get to witness or experience. That space feels lonely and exhausting. Sometimes the people who look the calmest are carrying the loudest minds. Go easy on yourself. Self compassion goes a long way.

One of the hardest parts of OCD is that from the outside, you can look completely fine. You can go to work. Smile. Hold ...
29/07/2026

One of the hardest parts of OCD is that from the outside, you can look completely fine. You can go to work. Smile. Hold a conversation. Pick the kids up from school. Laugh at dinner. Meanwhile, your brain has been running a marathon all day.

Replaying conversations.
Checking memories.
Arguing with intrusive thoughts.
Trying to work out if you’re a good person.
Trying to get just enough certainty to finally relax.

People often assume OCD is only what they can see. What they don’t see is the invisible effort it takes just to get through an ordinary day.

If this resonates with you, I hope you know this: You’re not “coping badly”. You’re carrying something that most people never get to witness or experience. That space feels lonely and exhausting. Sometimes the people who look the calmest are carrying the loudest minds. Go easy on yourself.

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