Tamara Fagan

I have always had a heart for helping others and a keen empathy for what others are going through. I was a “therapist” through my volunteer interests until I decided that I wanted to have more tools to do the thing that I am most passionate about; helping others love themselves. This led me to return to school in order to develop the skills that I need to be more effective in my life’s passion. I know that we all have 'stuff' and we need a safe place to process and organize that “stuff” so that we can recognize the strengths we have built throughout our life experiences. Our individual experiences, woven together, make a lovely and unique pattern.

After years of working in this field I have come to believe that acceptance is the key to resilience. I have worked in a variety of settings with many types of clients and have found that each of us have to learn to live with being uncomfortable at times. ERP allows us to learn to live with discomfort and not let the discomfort lead us away from living a happy, mentally healthy life. Many people with OCD have a tremendous amount of guilt and shame as a response to unwanted obsessive thoughts which keeps them caught in a cycle of secrecy and self-judgement. I wish to enable members to take the OCD monster out of the closet and bring it into the daylight so that they might recognize how unthreatening this little monster actually is.

I have worked with a wide variety of mental health diagnoses, specifically focusing on depression, anxiety, PTSD and substance abuse. Through my work with non-profit agencies I have had the pleasure of working with many people from a wide variety of backgrounds, age groups, ethnicities and sexual orientations.

I believe the most important aspect of any mental health therapy is the therapeutic relationship. Establishing that trust in me as a person, and as a therapist, will give you the foundation that you need to move forward. We will be in this together, we will start small and grow one step at a time and I will help you see how strong you really are!

ERP has been determined to be the most effective therapeutic modality for treating OCD and that’s what we do; all day, every day. My job as a NOCD therapist is to educate you and give you the tools that you need to carry with you in order to manage your OCD. It takes hard work, it takes doing homework and it takes facing your fears. My job is to give you the tools and let you use them throughout your lifetime.

We will work together to build a relationship where you can trust. We will move at your pace for sharing. We will push for transparency but if today’s not the day, tomorrow is OK. OCD is working very hard to make you believe that no good person has ever had these thoughts before and I am going to work just as hard to help you to see that this is simply not true.