Consultations for relatives

Guidance based on your relationship, your specific circumstances and what you need help managing.

Contact the clinic Guidance for relatives

Guidance for your specific circumstances

A consultation is for someone who wants help with a particular aspect of being close to a person with OCD. This may be a situation that keeps recurring, a boundary that is difficult to maintain or a need for a clearer direction.

You may attend as a parent, partner, adult child, sibling, friend or another person close to someone with OCD. We begin with your relationship, how OCD affects everyday life and what you would like to be able to do differently.

Your relationship
The starting point for guidance
Alone or together
When relevant and agreed
One or more consultations
The format follows your needs

What we can work on

  • A situation that has become difficult

    We can begin with repeated questions, rules at home, conflict, sleep or situations in which it has become unclear how best to help.

  • Agreements that work in everyday life

    We make it practical: who does what, how you can provide support and where your own boundaries lie. The aim is for you to leave with a direction that can be tried in the circumstances you are facing.

  • Your own role and level of strain

    The consultation may also address helplessness, responsibility, guilt, anger or exhaustion. There must be room both for caring about the person with OCD and for a more sustainable life for you.

Guidance follows the relationship

A parent, partner, sibling or friend does not have the same role. There is therefore no single right way to be close to someone with OCD. Guidance takes account of the responsibility, closeness and boundaries associated with your particular relationship.

You are not expected to diagnose, plan treatment or persuade the person with OCD to change. We work with what you can understand, agree and do from your own place in the relationship.

One consultation or a short series

Some people need one consultation to gain an overview and choose the first practical steps. Others benefit from several consultations so that everyday experience can be reviewed and agreements adjusted along the way.

You can also receive guidance if the person with OCD is in treatment elsewhere. The consultations focus on your role and the situations you are facing yourself.

If you are the parent of a child under 15, you will find the relevant parent guidance service on the page about children, young people and families.

Read the full guidance for relatives Read about children, young people and families

Would you like help with your role?

Contact the clinic and briefly describe your relationship and the situation you would like help with. We can then consider whether one consultation or a short series is the better fit.

Contact the clinic