ERP is not about eliminating distressing thoughts and situations, but about preventing them from taking over. It aims to:
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- Build understanding of ERP and how it helps treat anxiety or OCD.
- Relieve symptoms through confidence-building exposure exercises (facing one’s fears).
- Guide parents to bolster and positively reinforce their child’s efforts to master anxiety or OCD.
ERP can help release people from cycles of anxiety, obsession and compulsion in a period of several weeks. Here’s an example of treatment for a client with contamination obsessions, who washes her hands until her skin is raw:
In a clinical setting, the therapist carefully identifies the client’s fears, obsessions and often idiosyncratic, distress-reducing compulsions or avoidance behaviors.
With the client, the therapist structures an exposure hierarchy—a listing from low-to-moderate, anxiety-provoking exposures to higher-level exposures. In the therapist’s office, the client touches a doorknob and then touches her face or wallet. Later she progresses to touching a sink in a public restroom.
In the safety of the therapist’s presence, the client learns to confront triggering situations, often looking at pictures or videos or taking field trips.
The client envisions feared outcomes outside the clinical setting. She gradually takes on more responsibility in confronting her fears and not completing compulsive, ritualistic behaviors.
Over time, the client eventually stops her handwashing ritual, which also stops reinforcing her obsession through avoidance. With more time, she learns to tolerate the discomfort of having germs on her hands and the uncertainty about what happens next.
Learn more about Behavior Therapies offered at CFI…
