***For anyone who has had success with ERP,***…I’m Wondering about the effectiveness of It. I know Dr McGrath has said the thoughts become wimpier over time. What I am wondering is if you are locked into thoughts 24/7 it seems all day everyday, will ERP make them occur just occasionally? My theme is ROCD.

Hi! Exposure and Response Prevention is the gold standard treatment for OCD, anxiety, and related conditions. This means that it is by and large, with no other treatment coming close, the most effective way to treat OCD. It is in fact more effective for OCD and anxiety than any other treatment for any other disorder according to some of the evidence based literature. With that said, everyone is different. Research also shows that the one factor that is most consistently correlated with ongoing recovery is ritual prevention - that is, how often you are resisting your rituals. ERP will help you how to do that. We have lots of free tools on our app outside of just the forum and we are of course ready for you whenever/if you ever feel the need to start therapy! :) Good luck.

In my experience, which is the only one I can speak to, ERP has been extremely effective in the treatment of my ocd. What you need to know is that ERP takes a commitment on your part to see results, even in those times when it feels too hard. Intrusive thoughts will never end because everyone has intrusive thoughts but those of us with OCD treat them with importance and ERP helps us to recognize intrusive thoughts and let them be without doing compulsions. It is common in the beginning to feel like it won’t get better, but that’s ocd trying to work its magic and the more you practice ERP the less alarmed you will become by intrusive thoughts. I hope this helps.

Id like to know this too. Following

I'm a few weeks in and I'd say it's helping! It's uncomfortable but I think the thing is not that the thoughts disappear, it's just that you can become less bothered by them, and they don't scare you as much. So you stop really noticing them as much. We all have loads of thoughts all the time, but most we let go or don't attach much meaning to. With ocd, some of those thoughts - normally about things we really care about - feel impossible to let go. We wonder what they mean, we feel like we have to know an answer, have to make it feel better, and that's where the compulsions come in. So if we can make our reaction to the ocd thoughts - the ones we really care about - more like all the other ones, we can get a lot less bothered by them. Like I said I'm only a few weeks in but I have noticed a difference, and I'm catching myself a bunch of times before i ruminate on something for the 100th time. Solidarity for the thoughts! Sounds like that's been hard

Yeah at some point I start laughing about my thoughts like they are just amusing. Like that's the point to have these really weirdo thoughts and be like ehhh whatever. That is kind of weird to me and wonderful when that happens. like what an effed up thought, okay! Haha.