OCD Support Group in London: 7 Real Options and How to Find the Right One
Quick answer: An OCD support group in London can be a free, peer-led meeting where people with OCD talk about what they are going through, or a therapist-led group where you do structured exposure and response prevention (ERP) together. Both are worth knowing about. In London there is an in-person peer group for 18 to 40 year olds, and the two national charities, OCD Action and OCD-UK, run free online groups on Zoom for adults, young people, parents, partners and specific themes. A peer group can cut isolation and give you hope. It is not treatment, so if OCD is running your days, pair it with ERP from a specialist.
Most people who type "OCD support group London" into a search bar are not sure what they are looking for. Some want to sit in a room with people who will not look at them strangely when they describe their thoughts. Some are hoping a group will be a cheaper or quicker route to therapy. Some are parents or partners who are exhausted and want to talk to someone who gets it. All three are reasonable, and they need different things.
We are an OCD-only practice. Nearly every therapist on our team has lived with OCD. We have seen groups help people feel normal for the first time in years. We have also seen groups become one more place to seek reassurance. This guide is meant to help you find the right OCD support group in London or online, and to know what to expect when you get there.
What an OCD support group in London can and cannot do
A peer support group is a meeting of people who share a problem. Nobody is your therapist. There is usually a facilitator who keeps time, makes sure everyone gets a turn and holds the group to its rules, such as confidentiality and not interrupting. You turn up, listen, and share as much or as little as you want.
Here is what a good peer group often gives people:
Proof that you are not the only one. OCD is very good at convincing people their thoughts are uniquely shameful. Hearing someone else describe the same intrusive thought, out loud, can take a lot of the shame away.
Language for what is happening. Many people hear the words "compulsion", "reassurance seeking" or "mental checking" for the first time in a group, and suddenly a lot of their behaviour makes sense.
Hope from people further along. Meeting someone who once could not leave the house and now runs the meeting is more convincing than any leaflet.
Practical tips. How to ask a GP for a referral, which questions to ask a private therapist, how to tell an employer.
A regular reason to leave the house or log on. For someone whose world has shrunk, a fixed evening in the diary matters.
And here is what a peer group is not designed to do:
It is not a course of therapy. Nobody will set you exposure tasks, track your progress or adjust a plan.
It is not an assessment. Nobody in the room can tell you whether what you have is OCD or something else.
It is not crisis support. If you are at risk, use the crisis options at the end of this guide.
Keeping that difference in mind is the single most useful thing you can bring to your first meeting.
Peer support groups versus therapist-led ERP groups
The phrase "OCD group" covers two very different things, and the search results rarely explain which is which.
Peer support groups are usually free, run by charities or volunteers with lived experience, and open-ended. You can go for years. The content is conversation: people share what has been happening, others respond, and the facilitator keeps it safe.
Therapist-led groups are run by qualified clinicians and follow a structure. The best known is group cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with exposure and response prevention. You learn how OCD works, then you plan and carry out exposures, and you practise not doing the compulsion afterwards. These groups usually run for a set number of sessions, and they may be offered by the NHS or by private practices.
The NICE guideline for OCD treats group CBT as a proper treatment option. In its recommendations for OCD and body dysmorphic disorder (CG31), NICE lists "group CBT (including ERP)" among the low intensity psychological treatments that should be offered to adults with OCD when their functional impairment is mild, or when they prefer a low intensity approach. NICE notes that most group treatments count as low intensity because they involve less than 10 hours of therapist input per patient, even though each person may receive many more hours of therapy in the group.
For adults with moderate impairment, the same guideline recommends a choice of a course of an SSRI or more intensive CBT with ERP (more than 10 therapist hours per patient). In plain terms, a group course can be a good first step for milder OCD, but it is not meant to be the whole answer for everyone.
Research on therapist-led groups is encouraging. A 2009 systematic review and meta-analysis by Jónsson and Hougaard pooled 13 trials of group CBT and ERP for OCD. The authors reported a large overall pre to post effect size of 1.18, and an effect size of 1.12 when group treatment was compared with a waiting list. Group therapy did better than medication in two of the studies, and the one study that compared group with individual therapy found similar results. The authors were careful to say that more studies were needed to compare the two formats directly.
A smaller study from St Patrick's University Hospital in Dublin, published by Kearns and colleagues in The Psychiatrist in 2010, followed 24 people through ten 90-minute sessions of group CBT. Their average score on the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) fell from 24.7 before treatment to 17.1 afterwards. That is a single small study without a control group, so it shows what group CBT can look like in an ordinary clinic, not proof that it suits everyone.
None of this research is about peer support groups. Peer groups have their own value, which we come back to below, but you should not expect a peer group to produce the results of a structured ERP course.
Free peer support: 5 real options in London and online
Groups change venue, day and organiser more often than websites are updated. Everything below was checked on 1 November 2026. Please confirm details with the organiser before you travel.
1. The London OCD/Intrusive Thoughts Support Group (in person)
This is the in-person OCD support group in London that comes up most often. It is listed on the International OCD Foundation's support group directory and on Meetup. The group describes itself as "open to young adults aged 18-40 who are struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and intrusive thoughts", and its Meetup page says a formal diagnosis is not required. The IOCDF listing says it is free.
It is peer led. In the group's own words, it is led by "a non-mental health expert but a fellow OCD sufferer". The Meetup page describes a confidential, non-judgemental space where people share their experiences, with introductions followed by a group discussion on a planned or member-chosen topic. When we checked, the group had more than 950 members on Meetup.
One practical point: the two listings did not agree on the venue. The IOCDF directory gives Regent's Park and the first and third Monday of the month. The Meetup page gives The Gordon Hospital on Bloomburg Street, near Pimlico station, with meetings every other Monday at 6:30pm. The Meetup page asks people to book a place, so check there for the latest date and venue before you go.
2. OCD Action online peer groups
OCD Action, a national OCD charity, runs a long list of free online groups on Zoom. Its online support groups page says they offer "a safe and welcoming environment where you can connect with others with similar experiences and offer mutual support without judgement", and that all groups are "peer led and facilitated by a dedicated team of trained volunteers".
The general adult groups meet twice a month on set weekday evenings, with one daytime group on Thursday mornings for people who cannot do evenings. There are separate groups for young adults aged 18 to 25 and for young people aged 14 to 17.
The house rules are worth knowing before you sign up. You do not need a formal diagnosis. You can keep your camera off. Groups are for UK residents. You can join up to two groups to begin with, and add a third once you have attended the first two. To keep your place, you need to attend at least once every three months.
OCD Action also keeps a directory of independent local face-to-face groups. When we checked, the charity said it was reviewing that information, so the local list was not available. It is worth looking again, or calling the helpline, if you specifically want to meet in person.
3. OCD Action groups for specific themes and communities
This is where OCD Action's list goes further than most. Alongside the general groups, it runs groups for particular presentations of OCD, including checking, contamination, perinatal OCD, hoarding, and three "Pure O" groups covering intrusive sexual thoughts, intrusive harm thoughts and general Pure O. It also runs groups for people of colour, for LGBTQ+ people and for people with both OCD and autism, plus a group for body dysmorphic disorder.
A themed group can make it easier to talk. Someone with harm thoughts about their baby may never mention them in a general group, but might in a perinatal group where everyone has had similar fears. If your OCD theme is one you have never said out loud, a group built around it can be a gentler first step.
There is one caution here, which we cover in more detail below. Themed groups can tip into detailed comparison of thoughts and rituals. Go for the shared experience, not to check whether your thoughts are "the same" as everyone else's.
4. OCD-UK open online groups
OCD-UK, the other national OCD charity, currently provides information only for its online groups. Its online support groups page describes them as a space for people "to share how OCD is impacting them and to help reduce isolation, but also to restore hope in recovery and help people find support and ideas to try to challenge OCD". OCD-UK says the groups are facilitated by staff and volunteers with lived experience.
The open groups run weekly on Zoom, on Tuesday evenings at 7pm and Thursday mornings at 10:15am, and last about 90 minutes. They are free, they are for adults aged 18 and over, and they are open to people with OCD as well as family and friends. You need a free Zoom account, you do not need to be an OCD-UK member, and the groups are for UK residents. Registration closes when a session is full, but OCD-UK notes that cancellations often free up spaces.
5. OCD-UK themed groups for age and family
OCD-UK also runs smaller themed groups less often. When we checked, these were:
Over 50s: monthly, for people aged 50 and over with OCD.
Teens: monthly, for 12 to 17 year olds, with a parental consent form and an identity check before the session.
Young adults: monthly, for 18 to 25 year olds.
Parents: every two months, for parents of children of CAMHS age who have OCD.
Family forum: monthly, for family and friends supporting an adult with OCD.
For a London teenager who would never walk into an adult group, an online teen group can be the first time they hear another young person describe the same fears.
Therapist-led group options: 2 more routes to consider
Peer support helps you feel less alone. If you want to change the pattern of obsessions and compulsions, you need structured treatment, and some of that can happen in a group.
6. Group CBT with ERP through the NHS
Because NICE lists group CBT with ERP as a low intensity treatment for adults with mild OCD, it is reasonable to ask whether a group course is available in your area. Start with your GP, explain that you think you have OCD, and ask which psychological treatments are offered locally, including any group programmes. Availability varies from borough to borough, and waiting times can be long. If you are offered a group, ask how many sessions there are, how big the group is and whether exposure exercises are part of every session. A group that only talks about anxiety in general is not the same as a group that does ERP.
7. Private therapist-led groups, workshops and intensives
Private practices in London also run group work. At OCD Excellence our workshops and seminars are held on Zoom in a group format and cover specific themes, including relationship OCD and HOCD. Group intensive courses are part of what clients receive alongside our one-to-one intensive programme, and our senior therapist Steve created our OCD Survival Days programme, which combines exposure work with resilience and mental skills training.
The difference from a peer group is that a therapist plans the content, sets exposure tasks and can step in if someone starts seeking reassurance or slips into a compulsion during the session. If you want to know whether a group or individual route suits you better, an assessment with one of our therapists includes a severity indication, a look at your main and secondary OCD themes and a treatment proposal.
How to get the most out of a peer group without feeding OCD
A peer group can help a great deal. It can also turn into one more ritual if you are not careful. These are the patterns that come up most often, and what to do instead.
Reassurance swapping. Someone says, "I keep thinking I might have hit someone with my car." Another member replies, "You would definitely know if you had." It feels kind. It is also reassurance, and reassurance keeps OCD going. Our post Don't reassure me! explains why. In a group, try responding to the feeling rather than the fear: "That sounds exhausting. I get that one too."
Comparing thoughts. It is natural to listen for whether your thoughts are "as bad" as someone else's, or to decide your OCD is real or not real depending on what others describe. That is a form of checking. Notice it, and bring your attention back to the conversation.
Picking up new fears. Some people leave a group with a new worry they had never had before, because someone described it in detail. If that happens, treat it as just another intrusive thought. You do not need to research it.
Describing rituals step by step. Sharing that you check is useful. Teaching the room your exact checking sequence is less so, and may give someone else ideas. Good facilitators steer away from this.
Using the group instead of treatment. If you have been going for months and your compulsions are taking the same amount of time, the group may be helping you cope, but it is not changing the OCD. That is a sign to add ERP.
A useful test after each meeting: do you feel more able to face uncertainty this week, or do you feel a stronger urge to check, research or ask? If it is mostly the second, talk to a therapist about how you are using the group.
Choosing the right OCD support group in London for you
There is no single best group. These questions will help you pick one to try first.
Do I want in-person or online? In-person groups suit people who want to get out of the house and meet face to face. Online groups suit people who are housebound, live in outer London, work shifts or feel too anxious to walk into a room. You can keep your camera off in OCD Action's groups, which helps many first-timers.
Do I want a general group or a themed one? A general group gives you a mix of experiences. A themed group can make it easier to say the thing you have never said.
Am I the right age for this group? Several groups have age limits, such as 18 to 40, 18 to 25 or 14 to 17. Check before you sign up.
Is this a peer group or a therapy group? Ask who leads it, whether they are a clinician, and whether there is any structured exposure work. Both types are valid, but you should know which you are joining.
What are the house rules? Look for confidentiality, a facilitator who keeps the discussion on track, and some guidance on reassurance seeking.
How does it fit with my treatment? If you are already seeing a therapist, tell them you are going. They can help you use the group well, and our guide to ERP therapy in the UK explains what good ERP should include.
Give a group two or three meetings before you decide. First meetings are often awkward, and the anxiety of walking in can be its own small exposure.
Support groups for parents, partners and carers in London
Family members often need a group as much as the person with OCD does. Living alongside OCD can be lonely, and many relatives have never met another parent or partner in the same position.
The options are good. OCD Action runs online groups for parents of children under 17, parents of adult children and parents of people with body dysmorphic disorder, as well as a group for partners and loved ones. OCD-UK runs a parents group every two months for parents of children of CAMHS age, and a monthly family forum for anyone supporting an adult with OCD.
A carers group can also help with one of the hardest parts of living with OCD: family accommodation. The NICE guideline says that when family members or carers have become involved in compulsions, avoidance or reassurance seeking, treatment plans should help them reduce that involvement "in a sensitive and supportive manner". Hearing other families talk about how they cut back can make it feel possible. Our guide to family accommodation in OCD sets out the steps, and our support page for family and carers explains the help we offer relatives directly, including carer training.
When a support group is not enough
A group is a good place to start. It is rarely enough on its own when OCD is severe. These are signs it is time to add specialist treatment:
Compulsions or mental rituals take up more than an hour a day, or you are late for work, school or plans because of them.
You are avoiding places, people or tasks that matter to you.
Your family has started organising their lives around your OCD.
You feel low most days, or you have stopped enjoying things.
You have been going to a group for months and the OCD is the same or worse.
On our page for people with OCD we explain that it often takes 7 to 12 years from the start of OCD to getting the right treatment, and many people see several general therapists before they find OCD-specific care. A group can shorten that wait by pointing you in the right direction. If you are not sure how to judge a therapist when you get there, our post on finding an OCD therapist near you lists the questions to ask.
If you are in crisis. A support group is not an emergency service. If you are having thoughts of ending your life, or you are worried about someone else, the NHS page on where to get urgent help for mental health explains your options. You can call 111 for urgent advice, call 999 or go to A&E if a life is at risk, or call Samaritans free on 116 123 at any time. Under 19s can call Childline on 0800 1111.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free OCD support group in London?
Yes. The London OCD/Intrusive Thoughts Support Group is free according to its IOCDF listing and meets in person for adults aged 18 to 40. OCD Action and OCD-UK also run free online groups on Zoom that anyone in London can join, with groups for adults, young people, parents and partners.
Do I need a diagnosis to join an OCD support group?
Usually not. OCD Action says no formal diagnosis is needed for its online groups, and the London OCD/Intrusive Thoughts Support Group says the same on its Meetup page. If you are unsure whether what you have is OCD, a group can still help, but an assessment with an OCD specialist is the way to find out.
Will I have to talk about my intrusive thoughts?
No. In most peer groups you can share as much or as little as you like, and many people just listen at their first few meetings. In OCD Action's online groups you can also keep your camera off. When you do share, you do not have to describe the content of a thought in detail to get support.
Can an OCD support group replace therapy?
No. A peer group can reduce isolation, give you hope and point you towards help, but it does not include the structured exposure and response prevention that NICE recommends for OCD. A therapist-led group course with ERP is a form of treatment, and NICE lists group CBT with ERP as an option for adults with milder OCD.
Are there OCD groups for teenagers in London?
There are online options. OCD-UK runs a monthly teen group for 12 to 17 year olds, with a parental consent form, and OCD Action runs youth groups for 14 to 17 year olds. Parents can join their own groups at the same charities.
What if I feel worse after a group?
It is common to feel stirred up after your first meeting, especially if you heard about fears you had not considered before. Treat any new worry as another intrusive thought rather than something to research. If you keep leaving meetings with a strong urge to check or seek reassurance, talk to a therapist about how you are using the group, or try a different group.
Finding an OCD support group in London is often the first time someone says their thoughts out loud to people who understand. That matters. Go along, listen, and let other people show you that OCD can be lived with and pushed back. Then, if the OCD is still calling the shots, take the next step and get ERP from someone who treats OCD every day.
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