Dr. Michal Rosenberg, Psy.D.

Licensed Clinical Psychologist specializing in OCD, phobias, anxiety, and perfectionism

I work with thoughtful, driven people who are used to being able to figure things out.

That can make it particularly frustrating when your own mind becomes the thing you can't seem to solve.

You may be successful in your career and confident in most areas of your life, while privately getting stuck in obsessive thoughts, chronic overthinking, checking, reassurance seeking, or a fear that has begun to dictate what you will and won't do. You may know intellectually that something isn't dangerous or that you can't achieve absolute certainty, but still find yourself pulled back into the same loop.

This is the kind of work I love doing.

I specialize in OCD, phobias, and anxiety disorders, and have extensive advanced training in some of the most effective treatments for these concerns. My approach is active, collaborative, warm, and evidence based. I want to understand how your mind works, what keeps you stuck, and what we can actually do differently.

The goal isn't to make you care less, lower your standards, or become a different person. It's to help you stop giving so much time and energy to fear, doubt, and the pursuit of certainty, so you have more freedom to put that energy toward the life you actually want.

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My Specialities

  • OCD can look very different from person to person. I work with clients experiencing intrusive thoughts, contamination fears, health OCD, harm OCD, relationship OCD, sexual and identity related obsessions, moral or religious scrupulosity, checking, reassurance seeking, mental reviewing and rumination, as well as primarily obsessional presentations sometimes referred to as “Pure O.”

    OCD is particularly good at attaching itself to the things you care about most. For bright, analytical people, it can also turn one of your greatest strengths, your ability to think deeply and solve complicated problems, against you. You find yourself trying to think your way to certainty about something that simply can't be solved with more thinking.

    Treatment is about learning how to step out of that loop.

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  • I also specialize in helping people overcome specific fears that have started to make their world smaller.

    That might be a fear of flying that makes you dread business trips or family vacations, a fear of driving that determines where you can go, or fears involving elevators, heights, enclosed spaces, needles, blood, medical procedures, vomiting, animals, or other specific situations.

    People often organize their lives around a phobia for years without realizing how much energy it takes. Effective treatment isn't about convincing yourself that nothing bad could ever happen. It's about becoming confident that fear no longer gets to make your decisions for you.

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  • I work with people who are ambitious and hold themselves to high standards, but sometimes pay a significant price for it.

    You may overprepare because making a mistake feels unacceptable. Replay conversations long after everyone else has moved on. Struggle to make decisions without having all the information. Feel strangely convinced that your success could disappear at any moment. Or accomplish something you've worked toward for years and immediately move the goalpost.

    I don't see ambition or high standards as something we need to eliminate. The work is figuring out how to keep what is valuable about those qualities without letting anxiety and self criticism run the show.

Teletherapy

I provide virtual psychotherapy to clients in Illinois and through PSYPACT in participating states, including New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Washington, DC.

I believe good therapy should be both deeply human and genuinely useful.

I don't want you to feel like you're being run through a protocol. I also don't want therapy to become an hour each week where we have an interesting conversation but nothing really changes.

My style is warm, direct, curious, and collaborative. I want us to understand what is happening beneath the surface, but I also want to help you do something about it.

For OCD and phobias, that often means gradually approaching thoughts, feelings, situations, and uncertainty that you've learned to avoid while changing the responses that have been keeping the anxiety alive. I draw extensively from Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Inference Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

Exposure work can sound intimidating. It shouldn't feel reckless or like something is simply being done to you. I see myself as a knowledgeable guide and partner in the process. We'll understand what we're doing, why we're doing it, and move at a pace that is challenging enough to create change while still feeling collaborative.

I also recognize that no two people experience OCD, anxiety, or fear in exactly the same way. Your personality, relationships, career, culture, values, and history matter. Evidence based treatment gives us powerful tools, but those tools should always be applied to the person sitting in front of me.

Ultimately, I'm interested in helping you build a life that isn't organized around avoiding discomfort or achieving perfect certainty.

You can be ambitious without being relentlessly hard on yourself. You can have intrusive thoughts without having to solve them. You can feel anxious without allowing anxiety to determine what happens next.

That's the kind of freedom we work towards.

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Credentials, Trainings,
and Certifications

Education

  • Psy.D., Clinical Psychology
    The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Chicago

    B.A.
    Barnard College, Columbia University 

Advanced Training in OCD & Anxiety Disorders

My training in OCD and anxiety treatment is extensive and ongoing, with advanced study and consultation in several of the leading evidence based approaches to OCD, phobias, and related disorders.

  • Advanced Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Training and Consultation
    Advanced consultation program with Dr. Thea Gallagher

  • Intensive Training in Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy
    Cognitive Behavior Institute

  • Certificate in Inference Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT) for OCD
    Cognitive Behavior Institute

  • Advanced Training in Comprehensive Behavioral Treatment (ComB)
    For trichotillomania and excoriation disorder

  • Advanced OCD Specialty Training
    Including adapting ERP, ACT, and I-CBT for neurodivergent clients and integrating family based approaches into OCD treatment

  • Specialized Training in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

  • Advanced Training in Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

  • Advanced Training in Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE)

Evidence Based Approaches

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

Inference Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Mindfulness based approaches

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE)

Professional Affiliations

International OCD Foundation (IOCDF)

American Psychological Association (APA)

PSYPACT

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