Removing barriers. Connecting people with effective treatment. Ensuring access is not determined by circumstance.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is one of the most treatable psychiatric disorders.
Yet for millions of people, the greatest challenge is no longer discovering that effective treatment exists—it is actually being able to receive it.
Many individuals spend years searching for answers before they are correctly diagnosed. Others finally receive an OCD diagnosis only to discover that there are no qualified clinicians nearby, their insurance is not accepted, waitlists stretch for months, or specialized treatment is financially out of reach.
FORCE believes that evidence-based OCD treatment should not be a privilege.
It should be accessible to everyone who needs it. And access should never come at the expense of quality. People deserve care that is evidence-based, delivered by clinicians with appropriate OCD expertise, and grounded in the best available science.
Our care mission is built on a simple belief: scientific advances only matter if people can actually benefit from them. Effective treatments for OCD already exist. The challenge is making sure they reach everyone who needs them. We do not need to wait for future scientific breakthroughs to change lives. We also need to ensure today’s evidence-based treatments reach the people who need them.
Why Access to Care Matters
For decades, research has demonstrated that specialized treatments such as Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) can dramatically reduce OCD symptoms and help people reclaim their lives.
Yet many people never receive those treatments.
Instead, they may spend years in general therapy that was never designed to treat OCD. They may see multiple clinicians before finding someone with OCD expertise. Some travel hours for appointments. Others simply cannot afford specialty care at all.
The consequences extend far beyond symptoms.
Delayed access to effective treatment can affect education, careers, relationships, family life, finances, physical health, and overall quality of life. Years that could have been spent living are instead spent navigating a fragmented healthcare system.
FORCE exists to help close that gap. Every year that someone spends without effective treatment is a year that cannot be given back.
The Care Gap
Effective treatment exists.
Access does not.
Across many communities, there are too few clinicians with specialized OCD training. Insurance networks often exclude experienced providers. Geographic barriers leave entire regions without qualified care. Financial limitations prevent many families from accessing treatment even after finally finding an expert.
These barriers are not failures of individual patients.
They are failures of systems.
FORCE believes those systems can—and should—be improved.
Closing the care gap means doing more than helping individual patients. It means strengthening the systems that determine whether people can find, afford, and receive effective OCD treatment in the first place.
Access alone is not enough. People deserve access to treatment that is evidence-based, delivered by clinicians with appropriate OCD expertise, and grounded in the best available science. FORCE is committed to improving both access and quality because one without the other is not enough.
Our Philosophy of Care
FORCE believes OCD care should be:
Evidence-based
People deserve treatments supported by the strongest available scientific evidence.
Accessible
Financial circumstances, geography, insurance coverage, disability, or other barriers should not determine whether someone receives competent care.
Specialized
Not every mental health professional receives extensive training in OCD. We believe people deserve clinicians with demonstrated expertise in evidence-based OCD treatment.
Compassionate
Effective treatment should combine scientific rigor with empathy, respect, dignity, and collaboration.
Individualized
Every person with OCD experiences the disorder differently. High-quality care should reflect each individual’s symptoms, goals, strengths, culture, identity, and circumstances.
Building Better Access
Improving OCD care requires more than paying for therapy sessions.
It requires strengthening the systems that connect people with evidence-based care—from clinician training and referral pathways to insurance, education, partnerships, and community support.
FORCE aims to improve access by supporting patients, clinicians, referral pathways, education, and partnerships that make evidence-based OCD care easier to find, easier to navigate, and easier to receive.
Our goal is not simply to help individual people. It is to strengthen the OCD care ecosystem within the broader OCD ecosystem—making evidence-based treatment easier to find, easier to access, easier to navigate, and easier to sustain.
How FORCE Creates Impact
Treatment Access Program
FORCE is developing a Treatment Access Program designed to help individuals who would otherwise be unable to receive specialized OCD treatment.
Our initial model is built around a structured course of evidence-based OCD treatment that includes:
- diagnostic assessment
- up to 24 ERP treatment sessions
- approximately twelve weeks of biweekly structured care
Funding may fully or partially subsidize treatment depending on financial need, available resources, and therapist participation. Our long-term vision extends beyond financial assistance. We aim to build a scalable model that expands access to qualified clinicians, strengthens referral pathways, and demonstrates that evidence-based OCD care can be made more accessible through community investment and strategic partnerships.
Therapist Network
For many people, finding a qualified OCD specialist can be just as difficult as paying for one.
FORCE is building relationships with clinicians who demonstrate expertise in evidence-based OCD treatment.
Participating therapists will undergo a vetting process focused on OCD competency, ERP experience, professional standards, and commitment to evidence-based care.
Our goal is to build a trusted network that patients, families, healthcare providers, and referral partners can rely on when searching for evidence-based OCD treatment.
Professional Education
Improving access also means increasing the number of clinicians who recognize and competently treat OCD.
FORCE supports education, workshops, trainings, and continuing education opportunities that improve OCD knowledge among psychologists, physicians, counselors, social workers, nurses, trainees, and other healthcare professionals.
Earlier recognition and better referrals begin with better education. Expanding OCD expertise across the broader mental health workforce is one of the most effective ways to improve access over time. Too many clinicians receive little formal training in OCD despite how common the disorder is.
Community Support
Recovery rarely happens in isolation.
FORCE seeks to connect individuals and families with support groups, educational resources, peer communities, and organizations that complement clinical care.
Treatment is essential. Community helps people sustain recovery.
Community support cannot replace evidence-based treatment, but it can reduce isolation, increase hope, strengthen recovery, and help individuals and families navigate the challenges of living with OCD.
Building Better Systems
Many barriers to OCD care extend beyond the therapy office.
FORCE is committed to supporting initiatives that improve referral pathways, increase awareness across healthcare systems, reduce barriers created by insurance and geography, strengthen partnerships among providers, and expand access to evidence-based OCD care.
Long-term change requires improving systems as well as individual services. FORCE is committed to helping build those systems by bringing together clinicians, researchers, educators, healthcare organizations, advocates, policymakers, and people with lived experience around a shared goal: making effective OCD care more accessible for everyone.
Lived Experience in Care
FORCE believes that people living with OCD are experts in navigating the barriers the healthcare system often overlooks.
Their experiences help identify where people become lost in the system, what meaningful recovery looks like, which barriers matter most, and how services can better reflect the realities of living with OCD.
By integrating lived experience into program design, evaluation, and continuous improvement, we aim to build services that are not only evidence-based, but genuinely responsive to the needs of the people they serve.
Looking Ahead
The future of OCD care is not simply developing better treatments.
It is making sure those treatments reach everyone who needs them.
That future will require continued scientific discovery, more trained clinicians, stronger referral networks, expanded insurance coverage, better public understanding, earlier diagnosis, meaningful partnerships, and healthcare systems that recognize OCD as the serious and highly treatable disorder that it is.
FORCE exists to strengthen the systems—and the OCD care ecosystem—that make that future possible.
By expanding access, strengthening systems, supporting clinicians, and connecting more people with evidence-based treatment, we hope to help create a future where effective OCD care is no longer the exception—it is the expectation.
Our ultimate goal is not simply to fund more therapy sessions.
It is to help create a future where every person with OCD can access timely, evidence-based, high-quality care—regardless of where they live, what insurance they have, or what they can afford.
That future begins with access.
Help expand access to care.
Your support helps build systems that make evidence-based OCD treatment easier to find, navigate, and receive.