For anyone who would be willing to share I am wondering how imaginal exposure has helped in recovery of harm OCD. This has recently been introduced in my therapy and I find it challenging to do...

It is SO helpful and has worked wonders for me. The more gross detail you can imagine your most terrifying obsessions with, the more effective it will be. At first it sucks. Like TRULY sucks. But the more you force yourself to do it, the quicker your intrusive thoughts will let go of you. I can not recommend sticking with imaginary exposure enough.

Thanks Yox... I know it is incredibly hard to confront intrusive thoughts. I have run from them so hard and they are so painful. Though too by exposing them to the greatest degree over and over as you describe allows the recognition that they are just mental noise no matter how horrible.

i’d love to hear about this as well

I do it as soon as the intrusive thought hits me. Then I try to think about it in all its detail for as long as I can, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, until I get distracted. If I get distracted, I force myself to think about it again. Now that I’ve been doing it for a while, the thought usually goes away in 5-10 minutes and by the next day, I usually forget what exactly was bothering me. I tell ya - it’s hard at first but really works well. But I can see if your intrusive thoughts are already taking up too much of your day, you might want to set aside shorter stretches of time instead. Honestly, though, the longer you can do an imaginary exposure, the better.

Hi paw prints. I had the same concern about desensitizing the thoughts when my therapist recommended imaginal exposures. I was reassured it does not change who I am, and works to disempower the fear the intrusive thoughts bring on. I hope this helps.

Thanks so much for responding Yox. It sounds really effective. Can I ask how you do them? Do you write them or record and play back?

It was recommended I record the worst case scenario in present time and listen to it until the anxiety decreases by 50 percent or better less. They feel horrible to do and I wonder how long it will take to help reduce the OCD.

that’s horrible :0 i could never do that. i don’t want to grow desensitised or enticed by the idea. even though i’m not i’m worried that’d change