Robert Bray
The OCD Recovery Coach with
first-hand experience
Robert Bray is an OCD expert by experience – his own experience. Between the ages of 17 and 24, Robert suffered from various forms of anxiety and OCD. On his own journey to recovery, he was met with endless obstacles: books that didn’t help, therapists who didn’t understand, forums that offered little hope.
Since his recovery, Robert has been on a mission to raise OCD awareness and understanding and make the right resources and therapies available to help more people like him to recover.
He has more than 15,000 coaching hours under his belt and years of research and studying different philosophies and approaches. He has also worked alongside a top US OCD & Anxiety center delivering motivational talks and is involved in setting exposure work for clients with therapy centres. Today, Robert shares his extensive experience of dealing with OCD along with practical, compassionate and sometimes candid advice.
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“I am you: Having suffered from – and recovered from OCD myself, I fully understand how it feels to be trapped in a cycle of anxiety, and how OCD can lead to feelings of extreme darkness and isolation. But my own experience has given me the insight to fully understand that the only way to break the cycle is through rational thinking and the unconditional acceptance of your fears. It’s not just about repeated exposure to the things you’re scared of; my approach goes much deeper than that.
I’ve never met someone with an anxiety disorder who was broken, where recovery wasn’t possible for them. Through a combination of personalised coaching, and a 24/7 group support programme, I can help you to break down your irrational beliefs, get under your fears, accept them, accept yourself, and be totally comfortable with that. It’s a unique approach, fuelled by personal experience, that’s helped hundreds of people.
I began suffering from OCD around the age of 17. Initially I was experiencing health OCD that suddenly started chronically over a few days, changing my life at that point significantly, despite OCD being present in childhood it was never chronic or had that much of a hold. At this time I didn’t have an understanding that it was OCD so sought out psychodynamic therapy after realising I could not get better on my own and had no idea how to approach an anxiety disorder, this route however brought little relief.
It wasn’t until 7 years later when I was 24 that I found out about CBT therapy and decided to try that. It provided some of the tools but by no means all and I was still experiencing chronic anxiety and constant intrusive thoughts. It wasn’t until I was treated at a top US centre which specialised in OCD and anxiety where I was given more of the tools taking the edge off significantly and helped me a long way towards recovery, but it still hadn’t brought long term relief. I knew there had to be more, I knew there had to be a way to improve my life further, I was pleased that I was suffering far less and my anxiety had come down a lot however I still felt anxious in the background.”
Robert Bray, OCD Recovery Coaching
“Recovery came largely down to a changing point in my life where I decided to become an expert in the topic of OCD myself and study intensely everything I could on the subject. This journey involved years of studying and researching different therapy models, philosophies and approaches. The areas that I then drilled down into included the work of Dr. Albert Ellis – the founder of REBT (the first form of CBT), the Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers (whom much of CBT and modern therapies have been built based on), and anxiety pioneer Claire Weekes.”
“I also became a motivational speaker for the US based anxiety and OCD center which had helped me and spent time going around the UK delivering motivational talks and being involved in setting exposure work for clients with therapy centres. From this point on, and seeing how what I had learnt had taken me to full recovery, I became absolutely determined to bring OCD out of the dark and decided to make it my job. I branched out to coaching others to help them understand what I had learnt during my own recovery journey and from my lived experience, now that I am fully recovered. I was so driven by how clearly I could see the path to recovery and how recovery felt and wanted as many people as I could to see and feel the same.
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To be very clear about how recovery feels, I no longer feel anxious and while OCD can’t be cured, 99.9% of the time I couldn’t tell the difference between having it and not having it. Thoughts have lost all intrusiveness and while, like anyone in the world, I can get triggered by things that have the potential to scare me, I am able to dispute them within minutes using rational thinking, meaning OCD is no longer able to latch to anything or have a hold on me.
With all of the experience and research time spent above and over 15,000 plus hours 1-2-1 coaching, group and seminar sessions all around the world, I currently work with people all over the world from incredibly severe cases to mild OCD. People often come to me when they have been from centre to centre, tried many different routes and are convinced by this point they are treatment resistant – where in fact they just don’t have an understanding of OCD yet to bring relief. I help them see the path and coach them in getting there.
I myself suffered from multiple OCD thoughts latched on for years and a range of physical symptoms that OCD brings with it. Frustrated by the lack of knowledge on the subject I have made it my life’s work to become an expert by experience of OCD and go on to help bring this disorder out of the dark.”
Robert Bray, OCD Recovery Coaching
“My approach draws on the rational thinking principles of the founder of REBT (the first form of CBT) Albert Ellis, ACT and looking at what we can learn from the philosophy of Greek and Roman times. Much of CBT is built on the ancient philosophers’ teachings and so I found a wealth of valuable tools from them through my years of studying. “
“If you ask me what exactly I do, I would simply say it’s:
- Teaching people to see reality as it is not what we imagine it to be, when we are thinking irrationally.
- Teaching people to be rational and see through the illusions of fear so they can live a life on their terms, not OCD’s. Afterall, if there is no fear, OCD has nothing to latch to.
- Teaching people to understand how OCD operates so they can have the upper hand.
- Learning to both distance themselves from it and knowing when to get under fears and when to step back. OCD recovery is about knowing when to put your foot on the gas and when not to.
OCD recovery involves changing life philosophies and adopting skills for life that not only improve your quality of life with OCD towards recovery but transform your life in general. I use a general life coaching format to get under the fears combined with, where appropriate, looking into the fears so that we get at it from all angles. This prevents it from clinging and truly uproots the fears fuelling the cycle of anxiety, that leaves people feeling that they are stuck.
My main area of focus is taking an in depth look at fear, why people are afraid, what specifically they are afraid of and how they can learn to not be afraid. Looking at what they currently see as the obstacle holding back their life whilst making them aware OCD morphs from fear to fear. The end goal is unconditional self and life acceptance and facing fears. We don’t need to become totally fearless but have an understanding of why we’re afraid and see how this illusion is created. This allows us to see how OCD clings and latches. It is not overnight and it takes some work but I am proof that it is possible to recover from OCD, along with many of the people I have helped on the same path.
‘Thoughts are just thoughts’ doesn’t cut it for OCD, we’ve all been there with anxiety hovering in the background and it won’t release. That comes down to us still being afraid. The key to OCD recovery is understanding fear and learning why you don’t need to be afraid. My job is to demonstrate in a way, step by step, that this really is the case. Going with uncertainty and ERP is absolutely a large part of recovery, as is creating distance with the thoughts but for many OCD sufferers even after all of this work, they still feel stuck. What’s missing is the deeper level of unconditional self and life acceptance, as shown by Dr. Albert Ellis. This additional element of recovery is what got me to full recovery and I’m so grateful to have a platform today to raise awareness and spread the word across the world of the journey I went on, so that many others can reach full recovery too.”
Robert Bray, OCD Recovery Coaching
