How would I do ERP(exposure therapy) for existential thoughts/ obsessions? My compulsions are researching things endlessly and reacting to thoughts in my head and doing mental compulsions such as thought suppression, analyzing, and checking to see if the thought is still there. I know exposure to things things is good so I heard a flash card I could use and right it down and randomly throughout the day read it and accept the thought and feeling I get with it. Then do I return to going towards my goals and value? I also heard watching videos on it and stuff like that is good but that’s actually associated with a compulsion of mine... so I doubt it would be good. What do you guys do for exposure therapy? And what do you think I should do? ?

Erp with certain mental rituals can be tricky. One that sounds like it would be good place to start is your researching compulsions. If you have a particular type of thought that starts this researching exposure yourself to it maybe by writing a script. John Graysons book Freedom from OCD has lots of good script examples. I think you can find examples online too from the same author. The mental checking is harder to figure out how to do erp. I still struggle with that one. Regardless start with the obvious behavoiral issues your having.

Interesting thank you I’ll look into the script ones by that author online. Definitely though I cut out researching compulsions and other ones like avoidance or even ones that are little and you wouldn’t think add to it but do. Thanks!

I think I understand this type of ocd!! I have some of this type of existential ocd .. “what’s the actual point of life, what’s my purpose ” etc are sum thoughts that go through my brain intensely and I sometimes can’t seem to handle the unknown of life or the future or not knowing, it’s super hard to explain! I also research a lot and had to start to recognize whether I was doing so for comfort or because I actually was curious. If you find urself researching because U need relief from the ocd thoughts or u actually already know the answer to what ur researching then that is a compulsion and u should try to resist doing it. Overtime you will be able to see the difference between research for relief vs curiosity..... the book I read called overcoming unwanted intrusive thoughts was insanely helpful for this type of internalized ocd. This is more mental ocd and it’s what I struggle with the most. Your brain uses false comfort as the compulsion, erp therapy and the therapy in that book trained me to understand what my brain was doing and to not listen to it all the time. To ignore the anxiety and the false comfort and to let the thoughts come in and out without analyzing them or researching. Eventually after enough practice and exposure to ur sticky thoughts ur brain will learn to automatically understand what’s happening and watch the thoughts come in and out like watching a fish in a tank! Seriously google the book it saved my life!!