Evidence-Based Therapy for OCD & Anxiety
In-Person in the Mission neighbourhood of Calgary, online across Alberta
I work with adults and adolescents with OCD and the full range of anxiety disorders: generalized anxiety, panic, agoraphobia, social anxiety, and health anxiety. OCD presentations I see include contamination, harm, relationship, scrupulosity, existential, sensorimotor, real-event, and "pure O." Most people have been managing these on their own for a long time before reaching out.
In most cases, the early stages of therapy are structured and behaviourally driven: designed to target the core processes that maintain OCD and anxiety, including compulsions, rumination, avoidance, and reassurance-seeking.
Who I work with
How I workTherapy typically begins with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) — the gold-standard treatment for OCD and a core evidence-based approach for anxiety disorders — with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) integrated throughout. This phase is active and skills-based: structured exposures supported by cognitive and acceptance-based techniques, developed in session and practiced between meetings.
Many people choose to conclude therapy once active ERP is complete, or continue with periodic booster sessions as needed. Others move into less structured, more insight-oriented work: particularly when OCD or anxiety have shaped personality over time, contributed to repetitive patterns in relationships, or overlap with other concerns (e.g. depression, addiction, existential concerns) that were already present.
In that work, I draw on contemporary psychodynamic and existential approaches — attending to disavowed emotions, relationship patterns that keep replaying, and the defensive patterns which, though they may have once been adaptive, now narrow someone’s capacity to live authentically and fully.
I'm Michael Grisonich, a Registered Provisional Psychologist (P8389) with the College of Alberta Psychologists. I practice under the supervision of Chris Shorrock, R. Psych. (3955).
I hold a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology from Yorkville University. My specialist training includes Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for OCD and anxiety disorders through the Cognitive Behavior Institute, along with short-term dynamic psychotherapy training through ASADIS.
Alongside a group of talented and eclectic colleagues, I run my practice out of Carbon Psychology in the Mission neighbourhood of Calgary.
Learn more about me on Psychology Today.
Who I am
I offer 15-minute consultation calls, by phone or video, to discuss your reasons for considering therapy and answer any questions you have. These calls are also a chance to get a sense of whether we'd work well together — and because fit matters, I always encourage people to speak with a few therapists before choosing where to start.
Interested in beginning therapy?
Have a question, or wish to refer a client to me?
Reach out by email and I’ll do my best to respond within two business days.