Private OCD Treatment in London and Online Across the UK
Receive specialist OCD treatment from an experienced psychiatrist to better manage intrusive thoughts, compulsive behaviours, and anxiety. Our evidence-based approach provides personalised treatment plans designed to reduce symptoms, improve daily functioning, and support long-term mental wellbeing.
Book an AppointmentWhat Is OCD and How Is It Treated?
OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) is a mental health condition involving obsessions (unwanted, distressing thoughts, images or urges), compulsions (repeated behaviours or mental acts done to relieve distress), or both. The main treatments are CBT with exposure and response prevention (ERP) and SSRI medication, used separately or together depending on severity and individual circumstances.
You may benefit from OCD treatment if you:
- Experience persistent intrusive thoughts that are difficult to control
- Perform repetitive rituals or compulsive behaviours to reduce anxiety
- Feel distressed when unable to complete compulsions or routines
- Spend excessive time managing obsessions that interfere with daily activities
- Find it difficult to stop unwanted thoughts or repetitive behaviours
- Notice OCD symptoms affecting work, relationships, or overall wellbeing
Our OCD Treatment Service
Comprehensive OCD Assessment and Treatment
A detailed psychiatric evaluation designed to assess obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviours, and anxiety symptoms while creating a personalised treatment plan tailored to your individual needs.
£ 250
- 45–50 Minutes
- Remote Consultation
- Comprehensive assessment of OCD symptoms and clinical historyassessment of your sleep patterns and lifestyle habits
- Review of emotional wellbeing and contributing psychological factors
- Personalised treatment recommendations based on recognised clinical guidelines
- Guidance on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
- Ongoing support, medication advice where appropriate, and progress monitoring
Payment & Insurance
Klarna interest-free instalments are available for eligible appointments.Accepted Insurance Providers Aviva, AXA Health, Preferred Health Care Ltd., Vitality Health, Bupa UK, WPA, Allianz Worldwide Care.Pre-authorisation is required using GMC Number: 06032945.
How the OCD Treatment Process Works
Fill in a confidential questionnaire about your symptoms, compulsive behaviours, medical history, and daily challenges before your consultation.
Meet with your psychiatrist through a secure online consultation to discuss your symptoms, concerns, and how OCD affects your everyday life.
Your psychiatrist will evaluate your symptoms using recognised diagnostic guidelines to determine the severity of OCD and identify the most appropriate treatment approach.
Receive tailored recommendations that may include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), medication where appropriate, and practical coping strategies.
Regular review appointments help monitor your progress, evaluate treatment effectiveness, and adjust your care plan to support long-term symptom management.
Why Choose Prof. Ahmed El-Missiry?
- Consultant psychiatrist with extensive experience in diagnosing and treating OCD
- Evidence-based treatment using recognised clinical guidelines, CBT, and ERP
- Personalised treatment plans tailored to your individual symptoms and goals
- Compassionate, confidential, and patient-centred psychiatric care
- Ongoing support focused on long-term symptom management and recovery
- Convenient online consultations available throughout the UK
What Is OCD?
OCD involves obsessions, compulsions, or both.
Obsessions are unwanted thoughts, images or urges that keep returning and cause distress. You may know perfectly well that they do not reflect what you want or believe, yet still find them hard to shake off.
Compulsions are repeated behaviours or mental acts carried out in response to an obsession, to uncertainty or to distress. They are often meant to prevent something feared, ease anxiety or create a feeling of certainty.
Some compulsions can be seen, such as repeated checking or washing. Others happen entirely in your head, for example:
- Going over a memory again and again
- Mentally checking whether something happened
- Repeating words or phrases silently
- Analysing an intrusive thought
- Trying to reach certainty about a decision
- Reassuring yourself in your head
- Comparing thoughts or feelings
- Asking yourself repeatedly whether you are a good or bad person
OCD is not the same as being tidy, careful or well organised. What matters is whether persistent obsessions or compulsions cause significant distress or get in the way of everyday life.
What Are the Symptoms of OCD?
OCD looks different from person to person. Some people have mainly visible rituals, while others struggle chiefly with intrusive thoughts and mental rituals. Common symptoms include:
- Unwanted intrusive thoughts, images or urges
- Repeated checking
- Excessive washing or cleaning
- Fear of contamination
- Constantly seeking reassurance
- Counting or repeating actions
- Arranging or ordering things
- Mental reviewing and rumination
- Avoiding situations linked to your fears
- Difficulty tolerating uncertainty
- Spending large amounts of time on rituals
- Distress when you cannot complete a compulsion
- Disruption to work, study, relationships or routines
What an intrusive thought is about says nothing about your intentions, character or values. This is why many people with OCD feel ashamed or frightened to talk about their symptoms, and why an experienced clinician’s reassurance and understanding matter.
Understanding the OCD Cycle
OCD tends to run in a loop:
Intrusive thought → anxiety or doubt → compulsion or avoidance → brief relief → the loop strengthens
Imagine a sudden fear that you left the oven on. You go back to check, feel relieved for a moment, then start doubting what you saw. The check eases anxiety in the short term, but relying on it keeps the cycle going.
The same loop applies to mental compulsions. Instead of an obvious physical act, a person may keep analysing a thought, replaying an event or hunting for inner certainty. Understanding this cycle is a key part of both assessment and treatment.
Different Ways OCD Can Show Up
OCD is not always about handwashing or checking locks. The themes vary widely.
Contamination and washing. Persistent fears about germs, illness or particular substances, met with washing, cleaning or avoidance.
Checking. Repeatedly checking doors, appliances, messages, documents, mistakes or safety.
Harm-related obsessions. Unwanted fears or thoughts about causing harm, accidentally or deliberately. Having such a thought does not mean you want to act on it.
Health-related obsessions. Ongoing fears about having caused, developed or passed on an illness, often with checking, researching or reassurance seeking.
Relationship obsessions. Repeatedly questioning whether you love your partner enough, or whether the relationship is right.
Religious or moral obsessions. Persistent fears about sin, morality, responsibility or offending others.
Intrusive sexual or taboo thoughts. Unwanted thoughts or images that are deeply at odds with your values. Shame often makes these the hardest to disclose.
Symmetry and ordering. A strong need for things to feel balanced, complete or “just right”.
Mental compulsions and rumination. Repeated analysing, reviewing memories, comparing possibilities or chasing absolute certainty.
Themes can shift, overlap or occur together. A psychiatrist looks at the overall pattern rather than the subject of any one thought.
What Is “Pure O” OCD?
“Pure O”, short for purely obsessional OCD, is an informal label for presentations where the compulsions are mainly mental rather than visible. The name can mislead, because people who use it usually still have compulsions, such as:
- Mental checking
- Rumination
- Reviewing memories
- Internal reassurance
- Analysing thoughts
- Comparing possibilities
- Testing your feelings
- Trying over and over to prove an intrusive thought is untrue
If intrusive thoughts are distressing or taking up a lot of your time, an assessment can help decide whether OCD or another condition best explains what you are experiencing.
How Is OCD Diagnosed?
No blood test or scan diagnoses OCD. It is identified through a detailed clinical assessment. Your psychiatrist may ask about:
- The nature of your intrusive thoughts
- Compulsions and mental rituals
- How often symptoms occur and how much time they take
- Triggers and avoidance
- Reassurance seeking
- How distressing it all is
- The effect on work, relationships and daily life
- Previous psychiatric or psychological treatment
- Medication history
- Physical health, sleep and lifestyle
- Other mental health symptoms
- Relevant personal and family history
The assessment also checks whether another condition explains your symptoms better, or whether more than one is present. That matters because unwanted thoughts, repetitive behaviour, anxiety and rumination appear in several different conditions.
Private OCD Assessment
A private assessment gives you a confidential space to talk through your symptoms and understand what may be behind them. It is about more than confirming whether you have OCD. It asks:
- What symptoms are occurring?
- How severe or disruptive are they?
- What is keeping the cycle going?
- Are other mental health conditions involved?
- What has already been tried?
- What treatment options make sense now?
The result should be a treatment plan built around you.
CBT and ERP for OCD
CBT with exposure and response prevention is one of the main psychological treatments for OCD. NICE recommends CBT including ERP for adults with OCD, with the intensity of treatment depending on factors such as how much the condition affects functioning and how you responded to earlier treatment.
What is CBT for OCD? CBT explores how thoughts, interpretations, emotions and behaviours connect. In OCD, it focuses on what keeps obsessive fears and compulsive responses going. The aim is not to wipe out every unwanted thought. It is to change how you respond to those thoughts and to reduce the behaviours and mental rituals that feed the cycle.
What is ERP? Exposure and response prevention means gradually facing feared thoughts, situations or triggers while holding back from the usual compulsion. For example, you might plan a manageable exposure to something that raises anxiety, then practise not carrying out your ritual. ERP is structured and tailored to you. It is not about being pushed into overwhelming situations unprepared.
What about mental compulsions? ERP can help here too. Treatment may target patterns such as mental checking, repeated analysis, reassurance, reviewing, comparing and the search for complete certainty. The exact plan depends on how your OCD presents.
Does everyone need the same treatment? No. The right approach depends on severity, functional impact, earlier treatment, other conditions, medication history and your preferences. NICE guidance supports different pathways according to severity and response to previous treatment.
Medication for OCD
Medication may be part of treatment, depending on your symptoms and circumstances. SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are among the medicines used for OCD. The NHS explains that medication may be used alongside or instead of psychological treatment, depending on factors such as severity and how you have responded before.
Your psychiatrist can review:
- Previous medication, including benefits and side effects
- Current symptoms
- Other medicines you take
- Your physical health
- Other psychiatric conditions
- Earlier psychological treatment
- Your own preferences
Medication decisions should be made individually, not by choosing a drug from information found online. If you are prescribed an SSRI, take it and stop it only as medically advised. The NHS notes that benefits can take time to appear and that antidepressants should not usually be stopped suddenly without medical advice.
OCD and Anxiety
OCD and anxiety often occur together, and their symptoms can overlap. A person may feel intense anxiety when an obsession strikes, then perform a compulsion to relieve it. However, not every repetitive worry or bout of reassurance seeking is OCD.
A detailed assessment helps tell OCD apart from generalised anxiety, health anxiety, panic and other conditions. If anxiety is also affecting you, see our private anxiety assessment.
OCD and Depression
Living with constant intrusive thoughts and compulsions is exhausting, and it can wear down mood, relationships, work and quality of life. Depression can occur alongside OCD, which affects how treatment is planned. If you notice low mood, loss of interest or hopelessness, mention it during your assessment. You can also read about our private depression assessment.
OCD and ADHD
OCD and ADHD are different conditions, but they can occur together. Trouble concentrating, repetitive behaviour, restlessness and difficulty finishing everyday tasks need careful assessment to understand what lies behind them. A psychiatrist considers the wider pattern rather than putting every difficulty down to OCD. See our ADHD assessment.
OCD and PTSD
Intrusive thoughts, avoidance and heightened anxiety can appear in both OCD and PTSD, though the clinical patterns differ. An assessment can explore whether your symptoms relate to trauma, obsessive fears, compulsions or something else. If trauma is part of your story, see our PTSD assessment.
What If OCD Has Not Improved With Earlier Treatment?
Many people come for private treatment after therapy or medication has not helped enough. In that case, your treatment history deserves a close look, including:
- Any previous diagnosis
- The type and intensity of therapy, and whether it included ERP
- Medication trials, their length, side effects and how consistently they were taken
- Co-existing conditions
- Your current level of impairment
- Anything that made it hard to engage with treatment
NICE recommends a multidisciplinary review when adults have not responded adequately to appropriate treatment, particularly after suitable trials of CBT with ERP or medication. If you need a level of specialist OCD care beyond a single psychiatric consultation, onward referral can be considered.
Private OCD Treatment in London
If you are searching for OCD treatment in London, you may want a confidential assessment, a diagnosis, a treatment plan, or advice on therapy and medication. Prof. El-Missiry provides private psychiatric consultations for OCD, delivered remotely.
The service is designed for adults who want specialist psychiatric assessment without attending a hospital for the first appointment. For London patients, an online consultation means you can plan treatment from home or another private space. If specialist ERP is recommended, the best route to it can be discussed as part of your plan.
Online OCD Treatment Across the UK
Online consultations suit people who live outside London or simply prefer to be seen remotely. The service covers the whole UK. In a secure video consultation you can talk through:
- Intrusive thoughts
- Compulsive behaviours and mental rituals
- Anxiety and mood
- Previous treatment and medication
- The impact on daily life
- What you hope treatment will achieve
Remote does not mean less thorough. Whether online assessment is suitable is always considered individually.
What Happens in an OCD Consultation?
1. Complete the questionnaire. Before your appointment, you share information about your symptoms, medical history and current concerns.
2. Confidential consultation. You meet Prof. El-Missiry by secure video to discuss your symptoms and how they affect your life.
3. Clinical assessment. Your symptoms, history, level of impairment and any co-existing conditions are considered.
4. Personalised treatment plan. Recommendations may include CBT with ERP, medication where appropriate, practical strategies, or referral to a suitable psychological therapy service.
5. Follow-up. Where ongoing psychiatric care is right for you, follow-up appointments review progress and adjust the plan.
Fees and Appointment Details
| Service | Private OCD Consultation |
|---|---|
| Fee | £250 |
| Length | 45-50 minutes |
| Format | Remote consultation |
| Availability | Online, across the UK |
Insurance: Aviva, AXA Health, Preferred Health Care Ltd., Vitality Health, Bupa UK, WPA and Allianz Worldwide Care are currently listed. Pre-authorisation is required, using GMC number 06032945, and cover depends on your insurer’s requirements. Please confirm the current fee, insurance arrangements and availability when booking.
Frequently Asked Questions About OCD Treatment
What is OCD?
A mental health condition involving obsessions, compulsions, or both. Obsessions are unwanted intrusive thoughts, images or urges. Compulsions are behaviours or mental acts performed in response to distress or obsessive fears.
What are the main symptoms of OCD?
Intrusive thoughts, repeated checking, washing, reassurance seeking, avoidance, mental reviewing, rumination, counting, ordering and other repetitive behaviours or mental rituals.
What is ERP for OCD?
Exposure and response prevention is a behavioural treatment used within CBT for OCD. You gradually face feared thoughts or situations while cutting back the compulsive responses that maintain the cycle.
Is ERP effective for OCD?
CBT including ERP is an established, evidence-based treatment recommended in NICE guidance. The right form and intensity depend on your symptoms, impairment and treatment history.
Can OCD occur without visible compulsions?
Yes. Some people have mainly mental compulsions, such as reviewing, analysing, checking memories, comparing or seeking inner certainty. These are still part of the OCD cycle.
What is Pure O?
An informal term for OCD where the compulsions are mainly mental. People may still perform significant compulsions that others cannot see.
Can medication help OCD?
Yes, it can be part of treatment. SSRIs are among the medicines used, and whether to prescribe depends on your individual circumstances.
How is OCD diagnosed?
Through clinical assessment, not a single test. A psychiatrist considers your obsessions and compulsions, how often they occur, the distress they cause, their impact, your history and possible co-existing conditions.
Can OCD and anxiety occur together?
Yes. An assessment can help work out which symptoms belong to OCD and whether another anxiety condition is also present.
Can OCD be treated online?
Online assessment and follow-up suit many adults. This service offers remote consultations across the UK, with suitability judged individually.
When should I see a psychiatrist for OCD?
When intrusive thoughts or compulsive behaviours are persistent, distressing, time-consuming, or affecting work, relationships, sleep or everyday life.
How long does OCD treatment take?
There is no single answer. It depends on severity, functional impact, the treatment approach, previous treatment and how you respond.
I already know I have OCD. Do I still need an assessment?
A review can still help if your symptoms have changed, earlier treatment has not worked, your medication needs looking at, another condition may be present, or you want a clearer plan.
When to Seek Urgent Help
OCD can be extremely distressing, especially when symptoms are severe or come with depression or thoughts of self-harm. If you are at immediate risk of harming yourself or someone else, or cannot keep yourself safe, call 999 or go to your nearest emergency department. For urgent but non-emergency mental health advice in England, NHS 111 can direct you to the right service.
Sources and Clinical Notes
This page gives general information about OCD and private psychiatric assessment. It does not replace an individual medical assessment or diagnosis. It should be read alongside current guidance from recognised UK sources, including:
- NICE, Obsessive-compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder: treatment
- NHS, Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
NICE recommends treatment according to the severity and functional impact of OCD and recognises CBT including ERP and medication as established options. The NHS likewise identifies CBT, usually including ERP, and medication as the main treatments.
Ready to Talk About It?
If intrusive thoughts, compulsions or mental rituals are taking over your days, an assessment can help you make sense of your symptoms and explore treatment that fits.
Book your private OCD consultation with Prof. Ahmed El-Missiry.