How to Overcome OCD With ERP
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is classified as an anxiety disorder. This disease is characterized by obsessive thought and/or feeling patterns (repetitive and persistent) and repetitive, ritualized behaviors. It is a serious disorder that can cause a significant decrease in your ability to function normally and have a quality life. However, there are tools available that can help you deal with your symptoms and minimize the impact of the disease. One of these is exposure and response prevention (ERP).
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Instructions
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Educate yourself on ERP. It is based on the simple premise that if an individual is in a stressful situation for a length of time, she eventually becomes acclimated to it and stops feeling the anxiety. In ERP, the situation that causes fear is termed the exposure. The response prevention relates to the exposure and means remaining in the stressful situation (exposure) but not allowing yourself to perform the compulsive behaviors that usually accompany your anxiety. To simplify this challenging task, you expose yourself to the fear stimulus and practice response prevention until your anxiety is gone.
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List your fears and anxieties in order of most feared to least feared. When you begin the process of addressing these fears, start with the least feared (bottom of list) and work up. Remember that ERP is a process and there is no time limit. Work on one fear until you have effectively dealt with it. Don't work on more than one at a time and do not jump ahead.
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Allow enough time for this process. For each fear, you should be practicing every day for one to two weeks. You need to do it until your personal measure of anxiety is about half of what it is when it is at its very worst. This is usually about an hour's time each day in the beginning of the ERP process.
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Expose yourself to the fear if possible. If the fear is not an accessible stimulus, you may need to imagine the situation. For example, you may get symptomatic about flying but cannot get in an airplane every time you are practicing ERP. However, you can picture yourself flying in your mind and practice staying in the scenario even with the anxiety.
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Remind yourself that the anxiety you will begin to experience as you expose yourself to the stimulus will not hurt you. Remind yourself also that it will go away eventually and that you will be less affected by the anxiety in the long term by practicing response prevention. You will need to tell yourself this because you will not be utilizing the responses you normally use to soothe yourself. As you stay with the exposure, you will consciously choose to not react in your typical manner.
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Tips & Warnings
This process can be effective. However, it is most effective if you are also working with a therapist who assists you weekly in evaluating, processing and fine-tuning the ERP plan. You may also want to talk to your physician about OCD drug treatment. Medication therapy in conjunction with ERP has been found to be effective in treating OCD.
If you are struggling with symptoms of OCD, do not attempt to treat it by yourself. Seek professional help in order to ensure correct diagnosis and interventions. ERP can be done at home; however without professional support and guidance, you may cause yourself trauma and exacerbate your symptoms.
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