The 10-Week Anxiety & OCD Intensive
A live group program with Dana Colthart, LCSW, CEDS, for high-achievers ready to actually treat their anxiety, not just manage it.
“What if this time it’s different?
What if this sensation means something is actually wrong?
What if I lose control and can’t stop it?
What if everyone notices?
What if I never get back to the person I was before anxiety took over?”
You’ve spent enough time trying to manage anxiety. It’s time to treat what is keeping you stuck.
You look like you’re handling everything. You show up at work. You take care of your family. You meet your responsibilities. People see you as capable, reliable, and successful.
But underneath it, your mind is constantly working. Monitoring. Analyzing. Preparing. Trying to prevent the next moment of fear. Maybe anxiety shows up as panic attacks that seem to come out of nowhere.
Your chest tightens. Your heart races. Your stomach drops. The room feels slightly unfamiliar. Suddenly your body is sending the message that something is wrong, even when you know logically that you are safe.
And then the panic passes. But the fear of it happening again stays. You start planning around anxiety. You choose the seat closest to the exit. You avoid driving certain places. You skip events because you’re worried you won’t be able to leave.
You monitor every physical sensation, wondering: "What if this time something is actually wrong?". Or maybe your anxiety looks different. Maybe it’s not panic.
Maybe it’s the thoughts you cannot turn off. The intrusive thought that feels impossible to ignore. The mental reviewing. The constant need to make sure. The endless searching for certainty.
"What does this mean?"
"What if I missed something?"
"What if I’m not the person I think I am?"
You know these fears don’t make sense logically. You know reassurance only helps temporarily. You know checking, researching, and analyzing keep you trapped. But knowing that has not been enough to make it stop. Because anxiety is not a problem you can simply think your way out of.
Why What You've Already Tried Hasn't Worked
Why what you’ve tried hasn’t created lasting change. If you’ve talked to someone you trust about your anxiety or intrusive thoughts, you’ve probably heard things like: "You know you would never do that." "I’m sure everything is fine." "You’re overthinking this."
And for a moment, it helps. Your anxiety quiets down. You feel relief. But if you have OCD or an anxiety disorder, that relief can become part of the cycle. Your brain learns: "When I feel uncertain, I need to find an answer."
So the next time the fear shows up, the urge to check, ask, research, analyze, or get reassurance becomes even stronger. The problem was never that you needed one more person to convince you everything was okay. The problem is that anxiety keeps demanding certainty that no one can actually provide. Maybe you have tried traditional talk therapy.
You may have spent time understanding where your anxiety came from, exploring your past, identifying triggers, and gaining insight into your patterns. That work can be valuable. But insight alone does not always change the way your brain responds in the moment of fear. Knowing why you have anxiety does not automatically teach your nervous system: "I can handle this feeling."
Knowing why an intrusive thought appeared does not teach your brain: "I do not need to solve this thought."
Sometimes, the more we analyze, review, and search for the perfect explanation, the more important the anxiety begins to feel. And maybe you have been trying to manage it on your own.You take the safer route.
You avoid the situation that feels too risky. You prepare for every possible outcome. You check just one more time.You wait until you feel less anxious before moving forward. These choices make complete sense. They are your brain's attempt to protect you. But anxiety learns through experience. Every time you avoid, check, or seek certainty, your brain receives the message: "Good thing we did that. That must have been dangerous."
And slowly, your life becomes organized around preventing anxiety instead of living the life you actually want. None of this means you failed. It means you have been using strategies that were never designed to break the cycle. You do not need more reassurance.
You do not need to spend more time fighting your thoughts. You need treatment designed specifically to change the patterns that keep anxiety and OCD alive. That is exactly what ERP and ACT are designed to do.
What This Program Actually Is
ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) are the most researched, most effective treatments that exist for panic disorder and OCD. Not talk therapy. Not positive thinking. A structured, evidence-based way of retraining how your brain responds to fear.
The problem most people run into is access , therapists trained specifically in ERP and ACT are hard to find, waitlists run long, and a lot of people spend years with a therapist who lists "anxiety" on their website but was never trained to treat it this way.
I'm not currently taking new individual clients. My practice is full.
This program is the same clinical framework I use in session, fear ladders, structured daily exposure, response prevention, the ACT skills, taught live, in a small group, over 10 weeks. It's the way to work directly with me without waiting for an opening on my caseload.
Every week builds on the one before it, and every week you leave with something to practice, not just something to know. By the end, you'll understand exactly why your brain gets stuck in a fear loop, you'll have built your own exposure hierarchy and started using it, you'll know how to catch rumination before it turns into an hour of mental reviewing, and you'll have a working relationship with uncertainty instead of a constant, exhausting need to resolve it.
Your 10-Week Curriculum
Week 1 — Introduction to Anxiety & OCD, and the Treatments That Work What anxiety is, what OCD is, why your brain gets stuck in fear loops, and an honest look at CBT, ERP, and ACT — and why these are the approaches that actually change outcomes.
Week 2 — Anxiety & Avoidance How avoidance — even the subtle, sneaky kind — fuels fear and keeps anxiety and phobias alive long after the original trigger is gone.
Week 3 — The OCD Cycle Obsessions, compulsions, reassurance-seeking, and the short-term relief that keeps the whole cycle running. You'll learn to name your own cycle for the first time.
Week 4 — Thoughts Are Just Thoughts Why there is no such thing as a "bad" thought, how intrusive thoughts actually work in the brain, and why the content of a thought says nothing about your character.
Week 5 — How Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Works The mechanics of retraining your brain — facing fear on purpose, in a structured way, and breaking the compulsive patterns that have been running the show.
Week 6 — Rumination in Anxiety & OCD How mental reviewing, analyzing, and "figuring it out" keep you stuck in your head — and why trying to stop it usually makes it worse.
Week 7 — Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Learning a new relationship with anxiety — one built on acceptance, not an exhausting daily fight you can't win.
Week 8 — Cognitive Defusion Skills How to unhook from a thought and stop treating it as fact, urgent, or true — a skill you'll use for the rest of your life.
Week 9 — Values: Moving Toward What Matters Using your values, not your fear, to guide your choices — even when anxiety is loud in the room.
Week 10 — Uncertainty & Mental Flexibility: The Keys to Freedom Why learning to tolerate uncertainty is the long-term key to lasting relief, and how approaching your own thoughts with curiosity — instead of dread — retrains your brain for good.
Who This Is For
I built this for the person who has everything else figured out. You're a professional, a new parent, someone holding down a career and a household and a calendar full of commitments and you cannot understand why, with all of that under control, this is the one thing you can't manage your way through.
Maybe you're having several panic attacks a week and you've started organizing your life around avoiding the next one. Maybe you were just diagnosed with OCD and you don't know where to start. Maybe it's health anxiety, the symptom you can't stop researching, the appointment you can't stop scheduling. Maybe it's relationship-focused intrusive thoughts, or a fear of losing control, or a fear of "going crazy" that you've never said out loud to anyone.
You don't need a diagnosis to be in the right place. You need to be done letting this run the show.
Why Work With Me Here
I'm Dana Colthart, LCSW, CEDS, owner of Clear Light Therapy. I'm licensed in six states and trained specifically in ERP, ACT, and I-CBT for OCD, not general practice therapy with anxiety added to the list of things I treat. This is what I do.
I'm not taking new individual clients right now. My caseload is full. I built this program so that isn't the end of the conversation for you, it's a way to get the same treatment framework I use in session, live, without waiting on an opening I can't promise a timeline for.
What's Included
10 live weekly sessions, taught by me, working through the full clinical framework week by week
Guided exposure work, you'll build your own fear ladder in the program and start using it, not just learn the theory behind it
A small group of people doing this alongside you, who understand what a 3am intrusive thought spiral is without needing it explained
Direct access to a specialist clinician for questions specific to your situation as you move through the material
Where This Leaves You
You can keep doing what you've been doing, researching at midnight, waiting for a therapy opening, avoiding one more thing, asking for reassurance that buys you twenty minutes before the loop starts over.
Or you can spend the next 10 weeks learning, in order, the same framework I use with clients who came in having multiple panic attacks a week and left able to drive the route, sit with the thought, and stop needing an answer they were never going to get anyway.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this therapy? This is a psychoeducational and skills-based group program, not individual psychotherapy. You'll learn the same clinical frameworks (ERP, ACT) used in treatment, in a structured group format, with direct guidance from a specialist clinician.
What if I've already tried therapy and it didn't work? This is common — most anxiety and OCD sufferers have tried at least one type of therapy that wasn't designed for their specific condition before finding ERP and ACT. If you've done talk therapy, general CBT, or self-help and still feel stuck, this program was built for exactly that situation.
Do I need a diagnosis to join? No. If panic, intrusive thoughts, compulsions, or chronic worry are affecting your quality of life, that's reason enough.
Is this instead of individual therapy? For some people, this program is enough to create real change. For others, it's an excellent complement to individual therapy or medication management, and a way to build core skills quickly.
How is this different from an app or self-help book? You're getting live instruction from a specialist clinician, real-time guidance on building your own exposure hierarchy, and a group that keeps you accountable — not a static workbook you're left to figure out alone.