http://centerforhopeandhealth.com/

Center for Hope & Health, LLC, Ardmore, PA (2025)

06/04/2025

OCD doesn’t grab onto random things. In fact, it’s the opposite. It fixates on what matters most to you. That’s why people with intrusive thoughts about harming others or being morally “bad” are often the least likely to act on them because their values are in direct opposition to those fears.

So if OCD is popping up around your relationship, your friendships, your health, your safety, or anything else close to your heart, remember: it’s targeting that area because you care. That doesn’t make the thoughts true—it does makes them painful.

OCD isn’t telling you the truth. It’s telling you where you’re most vulnerable. And that’s exactly where compassion and evidence based treatment can help. OCD is so hard but treatment helps - and you can turn down the volume and find more freedom from it. Reach out if you’re struggling. We are here to help!

05/20/2025

Let’s talk about body checking. Body checking is when you repeatedly and purposefully do things to monitor your size/shape/weight. It can include lots of things - and can be sneaky! You might not even realize you’re doing it. It can look like:

🔁 Repeatedly checking your reflection/specific angles
📏 Pinching, measuring, or touching parts of your body
📷 Obsessing over photos to spot changes or taking photos in the same outfits/clothes/location to compare
👖 Trying on “test clothes” or specific items to see how they fit differently
🧠 Mentally scanning your body or comparing to others
🗣️ Asking for reassurance (“Do I look different?” “Have I gained weight?”)

Body checking can give short-term relief, but actually, it strengthens the hold body image and behaviors have on you. In fact, research shows that the more often you check, the more distressed you feel about your body. In recovery, noticing and reducing body checking can be one of the hardest, but so worthwhile, steps.

At the Center for Hope and Health, we help clients build sustainable, supportive coping tools and break free of the eating disorder voice, behaviors, and control. Reach out. We’re here

05/16/2025

Bad body image days or moments are never fun. The self critical voice can pop up so loudly and so intensely and make everything feel so hard. One of the first steps (and it can be tough!!) is noticing the thoughts and naming them for what they are - a thought, a distorted one, and not a fact. Then step two can be to challenge them - even if that means just putting a little distance between your own thoughts and the intrusive negative ones or going all the way to challenging and re-writing them. Here are a few responses to try when a mean thought pops in and sticks around. And if that voice just won’t quit?? Reach out. You don’t have to challenge it alone!

05/11/2025

Mother's Day can be a beautiful celebration of love and joy and connection and gratitude. That said, it can also be a reminder of pain, of dreams-not-yet-had, of what could have been, of loss, of trauma, of complication. It's okay to sign off of social media, to say no thank you to activities, to do whatever YOU need on this day - even if what you need is to act as if it's just a regular Sunday. Whatever today brings up for you, be gentle with yourself - it's one of the best gifts you can give to yourself (and others), if you ask us!

04/30/2025

When you’re feeling frozen, mentally disconnected, or not present, even a little dissociative, getting back into your body and with the present moment can help a lot. “Getting grounded” can sound kind of woo woo but it really is based in science! grounding techniques and purposeful breathing can help bring you back to the present moment and re-engage your mind and body.

Grounding techniques, like naming five things you see or feeling the texture of an object or noticing closely how you feel in the moment physically, use sensory input to activate the prefrontal cortex, helping shift the brain out of a the fight or flight zone and closer to regulation.

Purposeful breathing, especially slow breathing (like inhaling for 4, exhaling for 6), triggers the parasympathetic nervous system, leading to decreased heart rate, lower cortisol levels, and a reduction in symptoms of anxiety. It’s one of your easiest and quickest super powers for mental wellness! When you’re feeling overwhelmed or not available or numb, or really any tough feeling, try a quick breathing or grounding exercise. It can help! And if you’re struggling, reach out. We’re here for you.

04/21/2025

You know how people say it has to get worse before it gets better? Or that it’s always darkest before the sun rises? That idea is especially true when it comes to doing hard mental health work.

When you’re healing from trauma, working toward eating disorder recovery, addressing PTSD, managing anxiety, or navigating any mental health challenge, you often feel more sensitive, more vulnerable, maybe just a little more emotionally raw, as the healing and growth start to happen.

As you begin to face things, change how you respond, stop avoiding discomfort, let go of symptoms, and start nourishing yourself, the anxiety, ED, or OCD can push back. That’s normal. It’s part of the process. The bumps, the discomfort, the moments that feel harder? They’re not failures. They’re signs that you’re really doing the work.

And we promise it doesn’t stay so hard forever. Soon, it gets so much better. You just gotta keep through.

04/15/2025

Let’s talk about the difference between body positivity and body neutrality! Both can be powerful approaches, but they have important and nuanced differences. Body positivity is a movement that grew as a counter to fatphobia and societal beauty standards and particularly, the stigma and discrimination faced by marginalized people, particularly fat, q***r, and Black women. Over the years, body positivity has become trendy! It emphasizes the fact that you don’t have to be thin to be beautiful and in fact, all bodies can be beautiful. While it counters the idea that thinness equals beauty, it still emphasizes the importance of a body being appealing and lovable.

Body neutrality, on the other hand, works to take the emphasis on the aesthetics of the body away entirely. Instead of saying you have to love your body and find it beautiful, it says, hey you have a body! You don’t have to love it but you also don’t have to hate it - and in fact, it doesn’t matter what your body looks like in regard to your worth. You’re worthy regardless and you don’t have to feel or believe you’re aesthetically beautiful to be worthy.

Now, one isn’t necessarily better than the other. If body positivity works for you, amazing. But if you’re one of the people who finds loving your body tricky or who feels guilty if you have bad body days or who just doesn’t want to centralize looks, body neutrality may be a good approach for you. Finding balance and peace with body image is a journey, and one you don’t have to do alone. If you’re struggling, reach out. We are here to help 💜

04/08/2025

Despite the overwhelming evidence supporting exposure therapy for anxiety and OCD, it remains widely underutilized in eating disorder (ED) treatment, even in gold-standard approaches like CBT-E and FBT.

In Dr. Jenna DiLossi's latest article for Advances in Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, she makes the case for exposure therapy as a promising, underused intervention in ED care. From clinician hesitations to gaps in training, she explores why exposure is often left out and what we can do about it. As she writes, "Exposure therapy is underutilized in ED treatment, despite strong evidence for its effectiveness in anxiety and OCD, and their diagnostic similarities...Understanding the nuances of exposure therapy and how it works may shed light on important considerations for ED treatment.”

Check out the article, “Examining Eating Disorder Treatment: Making a Case for Exposure Therapy" here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2667382725000043?fr=RR-2&ref=pdf_download&rr=926395a4ab048c53

03/24/2025

OCD loves to ask, “What if?” 🌀 What if I hurt someone? 🌀 What if I’m a bad person?
🌀 What if something terrible happens and it’s my fault?

It feels like asking these questions will help you find certainty. But OCD isn’t really looking for answers - and no matter how much you try to reassure yourself or the OCD thoughts, the more you try to answer, fix, or get rid of the thought, the more in the OCD cycle you get. It's a vicious spiral!

That’s why in OCD treatment, we always lean on the power of "Maybe." It may sounds simple, but this is a hard, hard thing to master! In exposure and response prevention, the gold-standard treatment for OCD, we work on allowing for uncertainty. We help you resist the compulsions OCD wants you to do. We help you get comfy sitting with the discomfort of maybe until it's less uncomfortable or at least, manageable. Here's the thing, no matter how much OCd says you have to be sure, it's the opposite. In fact, healing from OCD? That comes from being okay with not being sure. 💛

03/22/2025

March is Self-Injury Awareness month. Self-injury, also called self harm, is more common than many people realize, especially among adolescents and young adults. Here’s what the data shows:

➡️ 17–18% of adolescents report self-injuring at least once
➡️12–15% of college students report a history of self-injury
➡️Rates are higher among LGBTQ+ youth, especially transgender and non-binary teens
➡️Most people begin self-injuring between ages 12–14

Self injury isn’t about attention-seeking or being “dramatic.” People often self-injure to try to manage overwhelming emotions, feel something when they’re numb, punish themselves, or signal distress they don’t have words for.

Self harm is painful, physically and emotionally, but treatment helps. CBT and DBT can help people heal and learn healthier coping skills. If you’re struggling, reach out. You deserve support 💜

03/05/2025

Social media offers a lot of different connections for access to information, one another, marginalized voices, and more. But, it also is designed to keep you on it (there are all kinds of built-in features that work to keep you online for longer, and returning to the apps sooner), leads to lots of comparison to others, isolates us from one another through algorithms and ads, throws really scary and overwhelming news in your feed, and can have negative impacts to your mental health if you are not using social media in a supportive, mindful way.

How can you know if you need to check-in and reset your social media use? Here are a few things to keep an eye out for. Remember, everyone's needs are different. What might be challenging for you might not be for another, and it might not be in a year or two, even! It's important to figure out your OWN version of balance - but make sure to do a regular check-in here and there about social media use and your mental health. Setting time limits, adjusting your feed, and finding ways to prioritize other outlets can be a great way to balance your baseline, particularly during stressful times.

02/28/2025

Eating disorders don’t discriminate. They can affect anyone, regardless of age, gender, race, or socioeconomic status. When people picture eating disorders, too often, they are picturing a young, very thin, white, woman. In reality, eating disorders have no specific look. They impact people of all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds. And, research shows that marginalized communities, including people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and men, are just as likely to struggle but are less likely to receive proper diagnosis and treatment. It’s essential to continually break down these misconceptions and recognize that eating disorders are complex mental health conditions that can take hold of anyone, from any background, at all different ages. During and beyond, join us in breaking the misconceptions and increasing awareness so people can get the evidence-based care they need as soon as they need it.

Center for Hope & Health, LLC

06/04/2025

05/20/2025

05/16/2025

05/11/2025

04/30/2025

04/21/2025

04/15/2025

04/08/2025

03/24/2025

03/22/2025

03/05/2025

02/28/2025

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