ERP THERAPY

It’s considered the golden standard for OCD. For me, I’ve been doing a couple of my own ERP exercises just due to my therapist not feeling too well and being unable to go to sessions because of that so it’s kind of forced me to do my own therapy in that timeframe. But I’m actually grateful for it because I think it allowed me to do things in my own time which helped a lot with the anxiety. So an example ERP is finding something that triggers you start with the least triggering things and as time goes by work up to the most triggering so that you kind of learn how to push back the anxiety enough that by the time you get to whatever is the most triggering you pretty much won’t be as anxious as you would’ve been if you started with that from the beginning. And while you were triggered, don’t do any kind of compulsion. If that’s to play games or scroll, don’t do it. If that’s to look up something to confirm whether this is what this means or this is what that means, don’t do it. If that’s to confess to somebody and get their opinion on it, don’t do it. The goal is to sit with the anxiety and allow it to slowly make itself go away. You will notice that when anxiety is the most spiked your brain ruminates a lot more than it does when your anxiety is not as bad. So as your anxiety lessons as you sit with it, and it recognizes that it’s not gonna force you to perform a compulsion, you’ll notice that a lot of of the things that you wanted to maybe look up or say or do actually also start to go away with that anxiety. The whole point ERP is to expose yourself and then learn how to respond to the exposure it’s very common and OCD for people to have compulsions as a exposure response and the goal is to teach your brain that these exposures aren’t necessary for fixing the anxiety or the OCD because they really are just feeding it and it’ll get worse every time we perform a compulsion

It looks like you’ve already got two great answers here, I just wanted to say that trying to make sure you’re doing it the “right way” is a very ocd frame of mind that I’ve had trouble with during my ERP experience. It can lead to things like doubting you’re doing the treatment right, if it’s really working, if you’re somehow tricking the system or something, or even if you really have ocd. Just a quick reminder that any spirals relating to that are ocd itself, and you’ve got this! It’s not always easy but it is worth it!

ERP is the gold standard treatment yes. It’s both simple in concept but actually quite tricky to do properly without accidentally performing mental compulsions. The first time you do it it’s incredibly helpful to have an ocd specialist walk you through it. I went in for a particular theme and they were able to help me construct a hierarchy and tackle them one by one. But each one had its own difficulties and confusion along the way. My therapist kept me on track and helped me identify my compulsions better as well as helped me choose which exercises I was ready to do or not. Doing all of that alone, while possible, would be quite hard. If you can’t afford a therapist there are online ocd courses that can walk you through it. But having a dedicated therapist who understands your individual obsessions is amazing.

Yes, it’s the golden standard for OCD.

Check out Nathan Peterson on YouTube! His channel is called “OCD and Anxiety”. He covers all things OCD/Anxiety & even has some really helpful content on how to practice ERP depending on your subtypes!

ERP is considered the gold standard for OCD, but it’s also important to remember that everyone is different, just because it works for most people doesn’t mean it is a good fit for everyone. Go in with an open mind and be willing to adapt to what works best for you, because I know with OCD sometimes we can become too attached to the idea of what is supposed to work and how it’s supposed to work.