- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
Comment deleted by user
- Date posted
- 3y
Hmm. I was thinking the same thing. Not sure if I should continue seeing her, just hard when she’s the only one that takes my insurance 😩
- Date posted
- 3y
@CatLove9 Yes I just feel like it’s so hard to find someone that does erp. Each therapist that I found that does take my insurance doesn’t have ERP in their little description about them so I’m always sceptical. Any advice?
- Date posted
- 3y
@CatLove9 Thank you!
- Date posted
- 3y
ERP is the gold standard treatment for OCD. I wouldn’t say he advice is bad unless telling yourself “it’s just my OCD” becomes a compulsion or form of self reassurance. I would ask her if she knows about ERP
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
So here’s the thing. Different approaches work at different times, and for different people. It’s not super black and white. For example, although you ideally don’t want to give in to compulsions, sometimes certain reassurances can work. Sometimes they can’t. For examole: If you are worried you have some health problem. It’s okay to look it up and see what it might be. As long as you don’t keep looking after you find the answer. That is where it becomes compulsive territory. It’s okay to ask someone “what would you do.” It might be a form of reassurance, but as long as you don’t ask again or don’t do anymore compulsions, it’s a step forward. It’s not 0 or 100. There’s grey areas. And so with your therapist, although what she said isn’t the ideal way of dealing with ocd, there are times where it can work well. Just to mindfully separate ocd type thoughts with other thoughts, can help you become more aware and remind you not to give in to intrusive thinking. Having said that, this method alone will limit your recovery. So ask her if she does erp, or acceptance commitment therapy; or even dialectal behavior therapy which can help with OCD as well. If she does none of them, she’s obviously not specialized in it.
- Date posted
- 3y
Thank you so much!
- Date posted
- 3y
Agreed! For me reminding myself of the separation of me and my OCD or recognizing that something is my OCD helps me know to fight it. Classically, one can’t reason with OCD, but logical arguments help the part of my brain that isn’t OCD, and that, if nothing else, helps me know to fight what the OCD insists. It’s something I might do in the moment. It might even clue me in that I should do some more ERP exercises. So it doesn’t have to replace ERP at all.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
@ARTnotOCD Well said!
Related posts
- Date posted
- 19w
I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!
- Date posted
- 17w
I read about ERP and have seen information about it on here. One of the goals is to say, "maybe I am this or that...ect." That terrified me. The thoughts and images that go in my head are disturbing and upsetting. I don't want to even think about saying, "maybe this or that." It's devasting to have these thoughts and question why you're having these thoughts. Doesn't the "maybe" make it worse? The one thing that helps me is that is to remind myself that these are just thoughts and I know I'm not a monster, even if I feel like one. Is ERP not for everyone? Has anyone else had a problem with the techniques used in this kind of therapy? I had cognitive therapy for years with an OCD specialist and that seemed to help a lot. Writing out the worst case scenarios would make me suicidal. Im having a difficult time not obsessing over the "maybe" after intrusive thoughts now. It doesn't make it better.
- Date posted
- 16w
So I just started few weeks ago and my therapist told me that I should try doing the compulsions I do to relief the anxiety and stop the thought out of the love of doing the compulsion instead of the anxiety relief. Like sometimes I repeatdly say prayers when I get an intrusive sinful images to put them away so basically I should say them more out of general love of saying them. Sometimes I crochet and distract myself a lot out of my thoughts so I should do the distractions out of love and enjoyment of doing them instead of fixing the anxiety and making it go away. To basically rewire my brain to not relate the compulsions to the intrusive thoughts so they're less compulsive I think
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond