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Be yourself

Exposure & Response Prevention for OCD Door Checking

January 26, 2012
-
Posted by Mark

A quick video talking about my old, OCD door checking compulsion and the huge spike in anxiety I experienced the first time I practiced Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) techniques with that compulsion.

If you’re doing ERP, be prepared for that big spike in anxiety. It’s not a bad thing. Don’t avoid it. Just as exercising makes your heart pound, especially if you haven’t exercised in a long time, so too does ERP make your brain pound and sweat and shout. But that’s a sign you should do more of it. ERP exercises your brain. Anxiety is just your brain sweating.

 

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1 Comment

on Exposure & Response Prevention for OCD Door Checking.
  1. Johnny Wilkinson
    March 27, 2014 @ 1:11 pm
    -
    Reply

    Thanks for the video, it really struck a chord. I’m about to start ERP and my symptoms are uncannily like your own. It really does help to know that others have gone though this, and it’s not just me who’s struggling.

    Thanks again!

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From last night's Twitch stream exploring examples From last night's Twitch stream exploring examples of Exposure Therapy vs ERP vs ACT. No actual cookies were harmed in the making of this theoretical example. Obviously, in reality, you would gather up every crumb of that cookie and eat it (while contacting the closeness of death and the wonders of life in that moment).

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