Karmen Tuivai (She/her)

I am trained in ACT, EXP and I-CBT. I can help you work through your OCD and find coping skills that will help improve your life and your ability to work through the tricks that OCD tries to play on you. I will explain each approach and allow you to pick which modality you would like to work with to help you on your OCD recovery journey!

When we stop resisting our anxiety and thinking of befreinding it and seeing it as a messenger or part of you trying to protect you from getting hurt, you can see your anxiety from different perspective. I am IFS informed and will help you see where your natural part of you--Anxiety-- is trying to help you but does a job that overdoes its job of protecting you. Find ways to embrace the parts of you working overtime to protect you and causing more chaos!

Losing someone you love can be overwhelming. Grief can make us feel like no one understands. I provide a safe space for you to work through your grief and find ways to work through the hurt and suffering of loss. We can together help you find ways to see your loss from a perspective that allows post-traumatic growth and healing from what you can't fix and what seems hopeless. We can instill hope through finding ways to see your loss in a way that helps you get through your sadness.

Using I-CBT, we can work through OCD and identify where the obsessional reasoning comes from before the doubt begins. This is a different way to look at OCD from a "Front end" perspective rather than trying to lessen the anxiety or compulsions in a "back end " kind of therapy like ACT or EXP. If you have not tried I-CBT, is it work seeing if the stories that OCD tells you are based on reality or the imagination and possibilities? If you have OCD, and want some relief, I-CBT may be for you.

Using EMDR can be a way to take away the pain of your trauma by working with the Adaptive Information processing system (AIP) in your brain, which can cancel out the negative memories and hurt that you have received and give you ways to work through the difficult memories by using Bilateral Stimulation. This is similar to REM sleep when your mind can look at the hard things you have been through and process them. EMDR can help you move through your trauma.

Acceptance And Commitment Therapy helps you to use small experiments with your thoughts and find ways to use coping skills to lessen your distress and anxiety. ACT uses ways to. work with your mind and look at your anxiety in a way that it is a messenger to how you are feeling. By identifying your values and what matters to you, you can work through the avoidance and discomfort of your feelings and find ways to manage that discomfort in a way that helps you move towards the life you want.