Exposure Response Prevention (ERP)
ERP is a type of behavioral therapy that’s designed to help you break out of an endless cycle of distressing obsessions and repetitive compulsions.
With ERP, we create a safe environment where you can methodically face certain objects and situations that trigger emotional distress.
Let’s say if you are anxious about being in a crowd of people—ERP is NOT about forcing you to go to a concert that has 10,000 people. ERP is about carefully structured exposure. What we’re going to do, instead, is to recreate anxiety in its smallest and most manageable form. For instance, we can start with having you keep a journal about your anxiety about crowds, and work our way up from here.
There is often a honeymoon phase to OCD. In most cases, it starts off as a nice little ritual that alleviates anxiety. Overtime, however, what starts off as a harmless ritual soon grows into a full-blown compulsion that demands to be performed over and over again to appease thoughts of anxiety. This is what creates a never-ending loop of obsessions and compulsions that can take over your life, if not addressed.
By being able to successfully and consistently lean into things that cause you discomfort, you are actively training your brain to reduce the irrational feelings of fear that you have previously assigned to certain objects and situations. This is what makes ERP especially effective—its ability to address the anxiety that often underlies many people’s obsessions and compulsions.