therapy for OCD


	ERP (Exposure-and-Response-Prevention) is a form of behavioral therapy that works for OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). It does not cure OCD; nothing yet can do that. You can learn how to use ERP therapy techniques to learn to prevent the compulsive rituals and to ignore the obsessive thoughts. The therapy that works for OCD is called exposure-and-response-prevention (ERP) behavior therapy. A good book on this is "Getting Control" by Dr. Lee Baer. It's in all the bookstores and at the Library under the number 616.8522. The first 4 chapters explain what OCD is, and the rest of the book tells us how to do our own ERP self-help treatment at home! If your medication is helping you to feel somewhat good, maybe even able to resist worrying a little, then it is doing its job. That's all it's intended to do; about 30% of the recovery process. The other 60-70% is done by you in the form of ERP. Let me explain how you use ERP to Fight your OCD: First, we need to separate the OBSESSIONS from the COMPULSIONS. Obsessions are thoughts that raise our anxiety. Compulsions are thoughts, plans, worries, or actions that seem to make us feel better. NOW, with this information, we start to do exposure-and-response-prevention (ERP) behavior therapy: Exposure: FOR THERAPY PURPOSES allow yourself to really think about the obsession. Be very specific. It helps to make a 3 minute tape of the story from a script or write it down so it will not change in your memory each time you experience it. Read the story or play back the tape while NOT reassuring yourself that this is stupid, it's only my ocd, it'll never happen. Do not allow yourself to worry. YOU WILL FEEL ANXIOUS. Now comes the Response-Prevention: Stay with this uncomfortable feeling. This anxiety will rise, peak, and then (after a while) if you are using the right meds, gradually start to fade away. Stay with it until it is really a little smaller, to re-train your brain that you can live with the feeling and ignore it! Don't escape into anything to calm down or you will end up training your brain that it was what you escaped into that solved the problem, when really this anxiety goes away on its own IF WE WAIT LONG ENOUGH. Repeat this process for practice ("THERAPY") several times a day and you will notice the peaks of anxiety get progressively lower and lower. THIS IS CAUSE TO CELEBRATE! Keep practicing until this gets boring and then you will have conquered this piece of your OCD! Work on any other obsessions and compulsions the same way, one at a time, giving each one enough practice until it gets boring. Email me if you want a free script to start working on an obsession. This therapy process may take a week or so for each one. Start with the easier ones (make a list and rate them by how hard it would be to ignore each one.) and work your way up to the hardest ones. MY job as behavior therapist is basically to figure out this list, organize the exposures, and "hold your hand" the first time you do it. Then YOU go do the exposures and a week later we see where you are and plan the next week's work! If you find this helpful, you can continue to have me make more therapy scripts for you to work on any other obsessions and compulsions, for $50 for weekly home visits, or $30 US dollars per weekly 1-hour online or phone "session". This also includes telephone support between sessions. Try the technique free first and let me know if you want more help with it! Keep up the good work! -Warren

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