Danielle MillerAMFT · Therapy for OCD, anxiety & intrusive thoughts
Online therapist in California for adults with OCD, anxiety, and intrusive thoughts. Gentle, evidence-based work that starts with understanding.
Is this you?
I know the kind of mind that asks what if and won't accept a maybe.
I have OCD myself, and I've done the work I help people do. So I'm not guessing about how exhausting the doubt can be.
My style is gentle. I want to understand what's happening before I ever ask you to do something hard. And I'll check in along the way: are you sure that's what you want?
Most of the people I see notice the anxiety in their body before they can put words to it: a tightness, a bracing, a breath that gets shorter. That's usually where we start.
For OCD and anxiety, the approaches with the strongest evidence are exposure-based, so that's the heart of the work. We go at a pace you can tolerate.
It's slow, kind work. Over time, it tends to give back the rooms in your life the anxiety had quietly taken over.
The goal isn't to silence the what if. It's to stop letting it run the place.
What the work can feel like.
Gentler than people brace for. Most people arrive expecting to be pushed straight into the scariest thing. That isn't how I work. We understand your experience first, and exposure only begins once it feels safe and makes sense to you.
A ritual promises relief and quietly takes more than it gives. We notice that trade together, and we practice letting a thought be there without answering it, paying attention to what your body does when you don't.
The progress is often quiet: a ritual that loosens its grip, a place you can go again, a what-if you let pass without checking.
The doubt doesn't get the last word, and you don't have to earn calm by obeying it.
How I work.
I want therapy to feel collaborative and human, never like someone trying to fix you. For OCD, I use Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), the most researched treatment for OCD, alongside Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which helps you make room for an uncomfortable thought while you keep doing what matters to you. CBT and somatic, body-aware work fill in around them, along with mindfulness, a compassion-focused stance toward the part of you that's been fighting the thoughts, and Motivational Interviewing when part of you isn't sure you want to change yet. For more on why this kind of work changes the brain over time, see Why Therapy Works.
What I help with.
The themes that come up most in my work. Each links to more on how Align approaches it:
At Align I co-lead our OCD work with Jasmeet Bhullar and our anxiety work with Fidel Quintanilla.
I've also written Field Notes: The 12 a.m. spiral and Facts, not feelings.
Who I work with.
Adults across California with OCD, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and health anxiety, including people living with chronic illness. Individual therapy.
Training & credentials.
- Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, California BBS #144995 — supervised by Jasmeet Bhullar, LMFT #117019
- Member, International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) · Member, California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT)
- Previously OCD Exposure Coach, Psychological Care and Healing Center, a Los Angeles treatment center providing partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient and residential care. Caseload included C-suite executives at Fortune 500 companies and public figures.
- Previously Program Coordinator, Hudson Institute of Coaching
- Master's in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy, Pepperdine University — the shared graduate program of every Align clinician
- Bachelor's degree, Westmont College
Logistics.
Sessions are held entirely online, on a secure platform, anywhere in California. Availability is flexible: Sunday through Saturday, mornings, afternoons, and evenings. The regular rate is $200 per session, with a limited number of reduced-fee slots and out-of-network reimbursement available. Start with a free 15-minute consultation.
Questions about working with Danielle, answered.
Does Danielle specialize in OCD?
Yes. I co-lead OCD work at Align with Jasmeet Bhullar, and close to half my caseload is OCD, including Pure O and mental compulsions. I'm a member of the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF), and before Align I worked as an OCD exposure coach at an intensive treatment center in Los Angeles. I also know the doubt from the inside.
How does Danielle pace exposure therapy?
Slowly, and only when you're ready. Before any exposure, we spend time on the pattern itself and what happens in your body when it shows up.
Then we map what the doubt has been keeping you from, start with the steps that feel manageable, and move up one step at a time. You can always say not yet.
Can Danielle help with health anxiety or chronic illness?
Yes. I work with health anxiety and with the emotional toll of chronic illness, something I also understand from personal experience, alongside OCD and generalized anxiety.
Does Danielle help with anxiety that isn't OCD?
Yes. Anxiety is the other area I lead at Align, alongside OCD. That includes health anxiety, the worry that gets louder at night, and anxiety that hangs on after the original problem is solved.
What does a first session with Danielle look like?
We talk about what's been happening and what you'd like to be different. Nothing hard happens in a first session. By the end, you'll have a sense of how I work and whether it feels like a fit.
How will I know if therapy with Danielle is helping?
Usually in small moments before anything big: you notice the urge to check and wait a little longer, or you go somewhere you'd been avoiding. I won't promise a timeline, but we'll keep track of what's changing together.