NJ OCD & Anxiety
Treatment Services
About Us
Understanding Your Needs and Challenges
At NJ OCD & Anxiety Treatment Services, we're dedicated to providing compassionate, evidence-based treatment for OCD, related disorders, and anxiety. Led by Meshulem Epstein, LCSW, and Aaron Tropper, Ph.D., our experienced team tailors individualized treatment plans, integrating gold standard therapies like Exposure with Response Prevention (EXRP) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). With a focus on collaboration and confidentiality, our independently licensed clinicians bring extensive clinical expertise and life experience to guide each client towards lasting positive change.
Our Services
We understand how difficult it can be to deal with OCD and anxiety disorders. That's why we are committed to providing compassionate and effective treatment. Our founders, Meshulem Epstein, LCSW, and Aaron Tropper, Ph.D, have over 35 years of combined experience in helping people overcome these challenges.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, affects about 3% of the population and can cause very significant distress and impairment. The primary symptoms of OCD are obsessions, compulsions, and avoidance. Obsessions are very uncomfortable and unwanted thoughts, usually doubts, that cause anxiety or guilt. Often the doubts are about contamination, mistakes, or causing harm. The distress created by these doubts often leads their person to feel compelled to engage in repetitive behaviors or thoughts (compulsions) such as checking, washing, or seeking reassurance.
PANS
(Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome, formerly known as PANDAS) can be characterized by the sudden onset of OCD symptoms in children associated with certain types of strep infections. While the prevalence of PANS remains a matter of debate in the medical community, the psychotherapy that is used for PANDAS is the same as other forms of OCD.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder
BDD, or Body Dysmorphic Disorder, describes an excessive and harmful anxiety regarding aspects of one’s appearance. Unhelpful behaviors range from excessive mirror checking to, in some cases, seeking out repeated cosmetic surgeries.
Tic Disorders
Tic Disorders, including Tourette’s Syndrome, involve sudden, repetitive, and involuntary movements or vocalizations.
Body Focused Repetitive Behavior (BFRB)
BFRB's can include Trichotillomania (repetitive and highly habitual hair pulling) Excoriation Disorder (skin picking) nail biting, cheek chewing, lip biting, finger sucking, finger cracking and teeth grinding.
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)
OCPD is similar to OCD in that it involves pervasive patterns of rigidity and unhelpful perfectionism. They are different in that people with OCD find their thoughts intrusive and unwanted, whereas those with OCPD tend to view their high standards as appropriate. Nonetheless, people with OCPD often seek help when they find their high standards are resulting in interpersonal conflict, overworking, procrastination, or chronic sense of failure.
CBT
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CBT is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It is a form of talk therapy that is collaborative and goal -directed, emphasizing change by addressing thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Therefore, CBT tends to be hands- on and usually includes homework and practice as a central element. CBT as an academic movement has also strongly emphasized the need to test therapeutic interventions as rigorously as possible, and therefore, CBT tends to be supported by empirical research. CBT is also an umbrella term for many different therapies that adhere to its basic principles.
ERP
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ERP or EXRP is Exposure and response prevention. This is the gold standard psychotherapy for OCD, and it involves intentionally confronting feared thoughts and situations, while eliminating the reliance on ritualized compulsions. ERP can be very demanding, and also very effective when implemented correctly. Numerous independent trials since over the course of several decades have demonstrated that 75% or more of people that have OCD experienced significant and sustained reduction in symptoms after a course of ERP.
ACT
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ACT, or acceptance and commitment therapy, is a unique approach within the CBT umbrella. ACT can be thought of as a philosophy almost as much as it is a treatment. It is about developing a different and more open relationship with life and experience, so that more energy is spent on living a valued life and less on repetitive and unsuccessful attempts to limit pain. ACT is highly compatible with ERP and often used in conjunction.
Our Treatments
Experienced
Our team comprises independently licensed clinicians, specifically hired for their extensive clinical, educational, and life experience. Their experience gives them the wisdom and perspective needed to understand each client’s unique circumstances.
Skilled care
Our mission is to provide high quality treatment that helps people effect positive and lasting change in their lives. Our approach is founded on evidence, individualization, collaboration, and experience.
Evidence Based
Our highly experienced clinicians are trained in the use of gold standard, evidence based cognitive-behavioral treatments, including Exposure with Response Prevention (EXRP), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and CBIT.
OUR TEAM OF PROFESSIONALS
Aaron Tropper
Head of Clinic
Aaron Tropper
Head of Clinic
Aaron Tropper
Head of Clinic
Aaron Tropper
Head of Clinic
Anxiety Disorders
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
GAD is characterized by uncontrollable worry about the things most people worry about, like finances, children and health. However, people with GAD struggle to ever stop worrying , and often have difficulty sleeping, and uncomfortable physical symptoms such as heart pounding, tension, sweating, or gastrointestinal discomfort.
Panic Disorder
Panic Disorder occurs when people have repeated panic attacks, which are episodes of extreme and sudden anxiety, usually accompanied by an urge to escape, feeling of imminent danger, and various physical symptoms. This is often accompanied by chronic fear of having another panic attack and/or Agoraphobia, which is extensive avoidance and restriction of going outside the house or traveling.
Social Anxiety Disorder
Social Anxiety Disorder is the disabling fear and avoidance of social situations, due to the fear that they will provoke embarrassment and social judgment. When not avoided, social situations are avoided or endured with great difficulty.
Phobias
Phobias are fears of specific situations or creatures, including animals, enclosed spaces and various others. As in Social Anxiety Disorder, the feared situations are avoided or endured with great difficulty.
Aaron Tropper
Co-Founder
I began treating OCD in 2011, as a doctoral student at Hofstra University’s PhD program in Clinical Psychology. in Long Island, NY. In the intervening years I continued to focus on the treatment of OCD. I have been affiliated with the Northwell Health OCD Center, for most of that time: first as a student clinician, later as staff psychologist, and most recently teaching doctoral students as Clinical Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at the Donald & Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. Along the way it has been my privilege to be mentored and taught by leading scholars in the field of anxiety, OCD, and OCPD, including Willam Sanderson, PhD at Hofstra, Anthony Pinto, PhD at Northwell, and Dean Mckay, PhD at the Institute for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Research in White Plains. I am also a member of the International OCD Foundation. My formal education, however, is equaled if not surpassed in importance by the true to life education I have received over the years from my patients. People struggling with anxiety and OCD are so often sincere, empathic, resilient, wise, understanding, and insightful, not to mention intelligent, analytical, and thoughtful. These are some of the strengths that help them overcome their anxiety in service of a better and more fulfilling life. My clinical practice also focuses on the treatment of OCD and anxiety disorders. I am owner and founder of Five Towns CBT, in Cedarhurst, NY, and the co-founder of this practice, New Jersey OCD & Anxiety Treatment Services. I focus my practice on adolescents and adults, and hold a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Hofstra University.
Meshulem Epstein
Co-Founder
I grew up in Scranton PA, the son of a local Rabbi with my seven siblings. After high school I focused on Talmudic studies for the next 12 years, receiving a BA in Hebrew from I.T.R.I. (Israel Torah Research Institute) and Rabbinic Ordination from Yeshiva Beth Moshe. I then attended Marywood University and received my Master’s in Social Work. After working in a skilled nursing facility, I had the good fortune to meet Jonathan Grayson PhD, Director of the Anxiety and Agoraphobia Center in Bala Cynwyd PA. That training with Dr. Grayson and ongoing relationship with him changed the trajectory of my career. I began specializing in treating OCD, and more specifically, scrupulosity. For over 20 years I have been using ERP and ACT to help hundreds of people overcome the debilitating effects of OCD. My collaborative style is light and humorous. Since then, I have been privileged to give lectures and consultations in the US and abroad. I am a professional member of the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation and attend their yearly conference to network with the leaders in the field and keep up with the latest research. I enjoy a close relationship with the leading Rabbis in the country as a course of my work. I currently have offices in Lakewood NJ, and Scranton PA and reside in Scranton with my wife and children.