Welcome to my world. Well, to part of it at least. I'm actually a career switcher. In my first career, I worked in advertising doing consumer & brand strategy work, but burned out after a decade. I'd always had an interest in psychology, in part because I personally grew up with anxiety & depression issues that I had some great therapy for. I wanted to focus on anxiety disorders & be one of those therapists who provides great, evidence-based therapy that makes a meaningful difference.

That I ended up becoming an OCD specialist was a happy accident thanks to my first internship. Unfortunately grad school never really talked about OCD or ERP, so when I interned at an intensive Anxiety & OCD program I got to learn hands-on all about OCD & ERP & basically fell in love with it. ERP has a favorable treatment rate of approximately 80%+ & I have witnessed so many people get better & get their lives back from OCD by doing ERP along with CBT, ICBT & ACT.

My internship took place at Alexian Brothers Center For Anxiety & Obsessive Compulsive Disorders, one of the few of hospital-based Anxiety/OCD intensive outpatient treatment programs, with a leading expert in the field - Dr. Patrick McGrath. I continued on as a staff therapist leading group, family & individual sessions for several years. Following that, I continued the same work as part of the founding team that opened a regional Anxiety/OCD intensive program for Rogers Behavioral Health in Chicago. At RBH, I had the pleasure of training alongside another leading expert - Dr. Karen Cassiday, former president of the Anxiety & Depression Association Of America. At the same time, I provided traditional outpatient services via the private practice of Willis Counseling & Consulting. Currently I have my own niche private practice & also provide expert, specialized, evidence-based therapy for OCD at an innovative practice known as NOCD (www.treatmyocd.com), where I also serve as a Clinical Trainer for all new staff.

My hyper-specialization within OCD specialization is working with autistic adults who also struggle with OCD, which I have done since 2009. This was an even happier accident from that first internship where I met my first autistic adults trying to manage OCD on top of their neurodivergence. My favorite form of learning is immersion, so I spent years in the autistic community learning from autistic voices in order to be as informed as possible. Sadly, much of the information we have on autism currently is based on research conducted by well-meaning neurotypicals who observed very specific groups of autistics & published their findings. As more autistic voices have surfaced, we have a much greater understanding of autism itself as well as how it can present differently in different populations. And in July of 2022, I was professionally assessed & identified as autistic myself!