ERP

This post is dedicated to educating you all on exposure and response prevention therapy (aka exposure and ritual prevention therapy), the leading therapy for OCD management.

In order to better explain the concept of this therapy, I'll write on an exposure I did a while back:

A couple of years ago, I was seeing an OCD therapist in Pitt. A lot of my exposures were implemented outside, so we often found various spots around Sewickley to conduct such exposures. A large part of my OCD revolved around religion. So when I was a lil kiddo, going to church was super hard for me because I felt the need to repeat (verbally or mentally) different prayers until it felt "right". I had to be thinking "good thoughts" when stepping into the church, sitting down in the pew, taking communion, using holy water, etc or else I felt like something realllllyyy bad would happen to me. So, for a good bit of the summer when I was in therapy, we would go in and out of churches. For one of my exposures, I was to take holy water and sit inside the church for ten minutes without ritualizing.

Physically going into the church = exposure

Letting the bad thoughts in / not ritualizing (i.e., repetition, checking, touching) = response prevention

The purpose of ERP is to sit with the fear for as long as possible, which you can imagine is very uncomfortable and anxiety provoking. Of course, the therapist is to never push you beyond breaking point.

OCD works in a a cycle: Obsession --> anxiety --> compulsion --> temporary relief only to cycle back to the beginning. Forcing yourself to sit through the obsession without compulsive behavior leads to more permanent relief of anxiety. Presumably, your brain is recognizing that nothing will actually happen to you if you don't do a particular compulsion.

ERP is both emotionally and physically exhausting, but incredibly worthwhile. It's best to use ERP techniques with a professional before taking on exposures in your day-to-day life. Once you master the skills in session, then it is important to conduct these skills independently.

This therapy is most effective for people with OCD, take it from me... and from the countless studies proving it. When I started therapy, I scored a 92 on the OCD screening test. Any score above a 42 indicates that the person shows OCD-like tendencies and therefore likely has OCD. My last therapy session ended a month or two ago. After taking the screening test again, I scored a 48. My score dropped from a 92 to a 48. If this doesn't show the positive affect of ERP, idk what will.

And as always, have a great Saturday.