It’s Not About White Knuckling It | Ep 43
It's not about white knuckling it. Getting help for OCD can sound like a torture fest...but it's not.
Watch this episode to hear how exposure response prevention (ERP) can break the OCD cycle. Erin shares insights on her three-week virtual intensive outpatient program and emphasizes the importance of staying committed to therapy for long-term recovery.
You'll hear tips on how to reclaim time lost to OCD and how personalized ERP services can help you.
➡️Timestamps:
00:00 For ERP services, go to valuedriventherapy.com
00:24 The Importance of Effective Treatment
00:33 Challenges in Therapy
00:52 Introduction to Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
01:30 Meet Erin: Your OCD Specialist
02:06 Seasonal Changes and Mental Health
03:09 ERP Intensive Outpatient Program
08:49 The Role of ERP in OCD Treatment
09:05 Customizing ERP for Individual Needs
09:48 The Process of ERP
18:47 The Importance of Consistency in ERP
26:07 Conclusion and Next Steps
27:05 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
27:44 Outro and Additional Resources
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Why We Do Exposure and Response Prevention
[00:00:00] We're partnering with NoCD to raise awareness about OCD. OCD is more than what you see on TV and in the movies. Imagine having unwanted thoughts about your relationship stuck in your head all day, no matter how hard you try to make them go away. That's Relationship OCD. It comes with unrelenting, intrusive images, thoughts, And urges about your partner or loved one.
Breaking the OCD cycle takes effective treatment. Go to n ocd.com to get evidence-based treatment, have you ever gone to therapy and felt like it wasn't going anywhere? You just weren't getting better, or you're going to your therapy session and by the time you leave, you actually feel worse? You might be struggling with undiagnosed OCD or you might be getting the wrong type of treatment for your OCD.
In this episode, you're going to be hearing about the first line gold standard treatment of exposure and response prevention. Now you've heard me talk about it in previous episodes for the different subtypes, but in this episode, I'm going to go really into those details about why we do it. Basically the method to the madness.
So if you've ever thought about ERP or wondered why in the heck do I have to do these things? Hang around in this episode and learn all about ERP. Why we do exposure and response prevention for OCD. Hi, I'm Erin Licensed clinical mental health counselor and OCD specialist. I'm also a wife, mom to three, and small business owner Helping those who are spiraling from intrusive thoughts to come out of that valley with long term recovery and self awareness Reheat your coffee and pop in your air pods to learn how to boss up to OCD.
Okay You Well, school has been in for a minute and you're probably busy with football season and having those pumpkin spice lattes. Fall and just the beginnings of fall is such a wonderful, blissful time. And how many of you just love to be outside whenever It's this cool fall weather. I know I do, and you know, the next time that you're outside, I really want you to start to think about what your intentions are as [00:02:30] the seasons change.
You know, when it comes to OCD, there's a lot around control and wanting to feel like things stay the same, but in reality, you know, so many things change and fall is such. a perfect reminder of how things change. So as coolness of the air starts to change, the leaves start to change, and we're getting into these different sports seasons, now's the perfect time to prioritize your mental health and take proactive steps in the changes that you want to make.
If you've been struggling with OCD, I've got a three week virtual intensive outpatient program for you. And the main treatment method that I'm using is exposure and response prevention or ERP. And it's designed to help you learn effective strategies and get the support you need so that you can manage your OCD and be thriving and make those necessary changes that you know you need but you've been putting off.
But making these necessary changes so that your life is no longer dictated by fear and compulsions. I've got a blog on my website that I'd love for you to check out. It's called 85 Ways to Get Your Time Back After Treatment for OCD. Because, OCD robs you of so much time. So, for those of you that argue, oh, I don't have time for therapy, I really want you to examine, well, how much time are you spending on your obsessions and compulsions?
Yes, you are likely spending more than an hour a day. In fact, those of you that need my ERP intensive program, your OCD probably feels like a 24 7 job. For these ERP intensives, it's for those of you that need more than one hour a week of therapy. but you don't quite need the hospital, but yet you feel like you're knocking on the door of needing to go to the hospital because your OCD is so bad.
And we know that, you know, winter is right around the corner. And so some of that seasonal depression. can start to creep in. So don't you want to be armed and ready strategies and support during this [00:05:00] season, during this time of change. So I'm really challenging you guys to consider signing up for my ERP intensives.
You can go to my website at value, driven therapy. com slash ERP dash intensives. To learn more about the program and to sign up for the waitlist form, because I'm only doing one person a month for this ERP intensive. And with that being said, it's three hours a day, three times per week for three people.
So actually just go to my website at value driven therapy. com and in the top navigation, go to therapy and select on intensive outpatient program for OCD. And I'll take you right to the page where you need to go, where you can read the information about this virtual program. So you can do it right from your own home.
And honestly I feel like that's the best route for us to go because by doing this from your home, you are in your environment. You're in. The place where you feel the most triggered or you feel like a prisoner to your thoughts. Now, before we move on, the other bonuses about the ERP intensives is that you are going to get my eBooks at no additional cost to you.
Now, if you're curious about the eBooks I have, again, you can go to my website at value driven therapy. com and you can go to the shop and see the eBooks and. You know, take a look for yourself. So you're going to get those eBooks at no additional cost. You'll also get my Soul Sync Mindfulness podcast at no additional cost to you.
Plus in the ERP intensives program, you're going to get additional coaching and support from me directly. So I've got an app that creates a secure way for us to communicate. So I will be able to offer coaching to you if you feel stuck outside of session. So you're getting a lot more hands on and a lot more support from me.
I chose to start offering this ERP intensive package, Bye. For a lot of reasons, because so many times when you are suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder and you finally get in the door to treatment, man, you're so ready to live your life again. You are so ready to get you back. You want to get back to the person you were before OCD came in, before OCD started taking center stage and started being the boss of your life.
So [00:07:30] you are ready to be in charge again, and I'm here to help you. Achieve that to help you accomplish that. And honestly, that's what I wish for all of you. Honestly, when we're talking about therapy sometimes therapy gets a bad rap because There are instances where if you're a sufferer of OCD and you've tried therapy before because i've come across people Plenty of patients like that where they've tried therapy multiple times and they're like, it's just never worked for me But they know that it can be better.
And that's what I love about OCD survivors. They are looking to get better and they haven't 100 percent lost hope and so they find their way to my door and I'm like, I'm so glad you're here because this is The ultimate fulfillment to help you reach that place where you're like I'm me again. Uh, you can read more about the ERP intensives.
You can go check out my shop and the eBooks, but also that blog post. It's on my website at ValueDrivenTherapy. com about the 85 ways to reclaim your time and to get your time back after treatment from or after treatment for OCD. So exposure and response prevention is the first line treatment for OCD.
So what does that mean? Basically, it's our go to strategy for OCD and it can feel very challenging and radical sometimes. Now, my version of exposure and response prevention is customized to your compulsions. So first of all, we will start with a screener and the screener is called the Yale Brown obsessive compulsive scale or Y box for short.
And with that scale, it will help really clue me in and you as well onto How your obsessions and compulsions are dictating your life. So that's where we'll start to see where we're going to structure that hierarchy or that ladder to do your exposure and response prevention exercises. The nitty gritty of it is that exposure and response prevention helps you dip your toes in the water, if you will.
So kind of like a cold pool, Which some of you [00:10:00] may have closed your pools by now. Man, summer is already coming on. But, you know, whenever your pool is cold or you're getting into a cold pool and you first put your feet in the water, now some of you may go ahead and jump all the way in and I, I commend you for that.
I am not one of those types. I can definitely tell which type you are whenever we're in the exposure and response prevention exercises. I can tell the ones who need to really just start with their tippy toes in the water and then just kind of like gradually go one further step at a time before they're fully swimming and in the water.
But then Yeah, that looks very different from those of you who are like, I'm just gonna go ahead and do the plunge and you go all in. So that's kind of what exposure and response prevention is like and you are dipping your toes into those fears and it may In some ways sound too simple or too easy or like you can do it on your own.
And okay, well, if you could do it on your own, then why haven't you done it by now? Just saying because it's challenging your nervous system. It's challenging when you're doing the exposures, it's challenging those automatic patterns and responses that you have to these fears. And so sometimes, When it comes to the ERP work, you need that extra support person, aka a trained therapist like myself, to help you push through and break through those brain barriers, if you will.
So, because likely, you're not going to get into a cold pool on your own, just because. No, most likely you're doing it because you want to join up with your other friends who are swimming or you're wanting to have a good time with the family members that you're with. So when it comes to OCD, you're held back, you're on the sidelines, you're not even close to the pool.
Once you start doing ERP, you can start to move and be free and you're having fun with your loved ones. So the exposure piece is important for sure. And some of you may even try the [00:12:30] exposure part and then you're like, but I'm not really seeing any difference. Like I still feel terrified. I'm still doing my rituals and the cycle of the obsessions and the compulsions because with exposure, what you're doing is you are inviting in the fear.
You're going up against the things you're scared of. And this can apply to any OCD subtype. We're partnering with KnowCD to raise awareness about OCD. OCD is more than what you see on TV and in the movies. Imagine having unwanted thoughts about your relationship stuck in your head all day, no matter how hard you try to make them go away.
That's Relationship OCD. It comes with unrelenting, intrusive images of your relationship. thoughts and urges about your partner or loved one. If you think you may be struggling with relationship OCD, there's hope. NoCd offers effective, affordable, and convenient OCD therapy. NoCd therapists are trained in exposure response prevention therapy, the gold standard treatment for OCD.
With NoCd, you can do virtual, live, face to face video sessions with one of their licensed specialty trained therapists. It's affordable and they accept most major insurance plans. Breaking the relationship OCD cycle takes effective treatment To get started with no cd, go to no cd.com/savage. There was a study done by some of the no CD researchers.
Love the research that they do. And their research was published on the website called JMIR Publications with the Journal of Medical Internet Research that was sharing how online video teletherapy using exposure and response prevention was just as effective as Not only in person therapy, but they were also proving that ERP was effective for any subtype of OCD.
So whether that was relationship OCD, religious OCD, contamination, or just right OCD, pure O OCD, false memory OCD, you get the picture. ERP still showed some clinically significant improvements for those patients. So, but that's not the whole story because we've got the and response [00:15:00] prevention. So response prevention is a key part of this treatment process Because what you are doing and what myself as the OCD therapist is doing is we are trying to prevent you from doing the behaviors that your brain thinks you need to do to be safe, to be chill, to be neutral, or to not feel anxious.
So, let's use religious OCD, for example. You may have this fear of, and it can be totally irrational, alright? So let me, let me just go with an irrational fear. And some of you may relate, some of you may not. But, as you know, OCD doesn't always make sense. So, let's say, You've got this impression like, oh, if I wear red, then that means I'm a devil worshipper.
And so because of that, you don't wear any red, and in fact, you don't even say the word devil. So, for the exposure, I may ask you to wear something that's red. Alright, but that's not enough, alright? The response prevention is for you to stay in that, what we call work zone, once you are triggered. So once you put on that red shirt, and you start to feel those obsessions coming up, those fears coming up, the anxiety rising, and you want to take off that red shirt.
Well, that's where response prevention comes in. We are preventing you. You are not going to take off the shirt. Does that make sense? So, because if I just ask you to wear the red shirt and then call it a day, well, we really haven't set any boundaries or parameters around your brain. Really getting the learning tip that it needs.
The key part is that you need to stay in that space, that realm of being exposed to your fear and hanging with it because we are expanding your comfort zone. We are building your tolerance for discomfort, and we're changing your relationship for uncertainty. And it's such A powerful treatment.
Oftentimes, once you get this rhythm and momentum going of like, yeah, I got this, I can do this. I can [00:17:30] handle discomfort your life. Really changes and we may not see it right there in that very specific moment when we're doing the ERP because the ERP is uncomfortable. Now, but that's very different if you've gone to a talk therapy session and all you've done is just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk about your obsessions and you're not feeling better.
Now, ERP, you're going to feel worn out, you're going to feel tired, and you're going to feel like your brain has just done this really strenuous mental workout and you're like, oh my gosh, why did I have to do that? So the work is not done though, because your brain is still processing and learning this new information because it's like, Oh, we just wore this red shirt for 15 minutes and I'm still who I am.
I'm not a devil worshiper and yeah, so like I'm feeling a little bit on edge because maybe those what ifs are still hanging around, like, well, What if I turn into a devil worshiper tomorrow? You know, like, or your OCD is like, well, you could only handle it that one time. So guess what guys? Not only will you do these ERP exercises in session, I will ask you and encourage you to do them outside of session.
You need to do them. And again, depending upon your situation, we'll talk about the unique steps to help you and help your brain learn what it needs to learn. So I may ask you, you need to try this ERP exercise, like in the evening or Your office, or in your car, or at the gym, or the next time you call up your mom, like something that changes it up and mixes up the setting so that your brain can see, huh, so actually it wasn't just that one time, like I can actually handle this across different days, different places.
You know, especially in public places. I think that's where you really have a lot of learning because the other thing too, your brain is not expecting this. So how many times have you had a routine going and let's say you're a college student and your professor, you know, teaches [00:20:00] the same way every time you basically know how the class is going to run.
But this time, What if your professor came in one day with the silliest outfit and had just this very lively presentation? Imagine how much, like, your brain would come online and be like, oh! This is interesting. This is different. What's happening? So with exposure response prevention is kind of the same way because we're coming in with something new, something different, and while it may not feel exciting, it's really going to stimulate a new interest.
It's going to stimulate more engagement and a heightened sensitivity to this new experience. When it comes to exposure and response prevention, I want you guys to remember that. I will never ask you to do anything I wouldn't do myself, or that I wouldn't ask a family member to do, but in the times that it feels radical, and like it's too extreme or too far out there, you can absolutely communicate that with your therapist.
And let them know and be open to their feedback or the education around why they're doing what they're doing. Because ultimately what we're trying to do is really push the boundaries of the OCD and challenge it in a way where it's like getting you to the point of thinking, I don't care what OCD has to say.
I'm not listening to it anymore because it's a bunch of phony baloney stuff. And so ultimately, what you start to interpret or what you start to believe is like when those OCD thoughts come through, you're like, so what? I don't care. Or that's just my OCD talking again. But I'll tell you what OCD is not.
It's not about OCD. White knuckling the experience, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, when you're driving and you're so stressed out because maybe there's hail and sleet or snow on the road and a lot of traffic and you're just like gripping the steering wheel and you're like, Oh my gosh, when is this over?
That is not the goal nor the intent of exposure response prevention. It's really to get you in there and start to get familiar with the discomfort. And maybe that still feels a little bit. foreign or odd. And I totally get it. But think about when you're learning something [00:22:30] new or when you're getting familiar with something that you haven't learned before, it's really easy to avoid and it's really easy to feel overwhelmed.
Think about like a foreign language, for example, how many times have you been in a foreign language class and you're like, Oh, good gosh. Like, I have no idea what they're saying. It sounds like a bunch of gibberish. I just don't get it. I just can't do this. No, thank you. But, if you stick with it long enough, and you get more familiar with the foreign language, say you start to listen to it, Like, some of the music, or you watch a movie in a foreign language, you go to, I mean, obviously if you go to a country where they speak a foreign language, it's like, your brain, all that noise starts to calm down.
The volume is turned down on all of that extra stuff. And your brain is starting to be like, oh. I mean, I can handle this. I can move forward and learn this new language, or I can at least pick up a few bits and pieces of what's being said. And then you start to hear the space between the different words, and then you can start to tell which words were in a sentence.
So what you're learning to do is you are learning to get familiar with the uncertainty. You're changing the relationship with the fears, the anxiety. The lack of control, et cetera. So it's not about white knuckling the experience. It's truly about changing your relationship with all of those aspects that you typically avoid or try to ignore.
The other thing that ERP is not, it's not about creating new distractions. Again, bottom line, we're changing that relationship with uncertainty, anxiety, fear, et cetera. control, et cetera. Because if you just engage in another distraction, that's not ultimately helping you. I highly recommend that every person with OCD should get treated by ERP and every person with OCD can get effective treatment because ERP is very effective and the research shows it.
And one research study that was in the National Library of Medicine shared how ERP was just as effective as medicine. And there was strong evidence supporting that ERP gives patients [00:25:00] long term results. Well, how many things out there promise long term results? Not many. So, while ERP can feel like a lot and like you don't want to do it, I highly encourage you to trust the process, stick with your therapy program, stick with the treatment plan.
Alright? Don't leave treatment early. Please don't leave treatment early. If you are thinking about stopping treatment, talk to your therapist. Because if the ERP is feeling too much, there are options. The ERP exercises can be broken down into even smaller steps. Okay. So just like dipping your toes in the pool, we can back it up some.
And again, if ERP still feels too, like too much at that point, we can explore doing the ICBT route and I'll have another episode about ICBT in the future. I've already talked about it a little bit in previous episodes on the harm OCD and the suicide OCD episodes. But in any case, Thank you for listening in and learning about exposure and response prevention and why it's helpful for OCD and how it's helpful for OCD.
And sign up for my ERP intensive study. program, because in this season of change, it's time for you to get the changes you need, you deserve, and that you're capable of. We're partnering with NoCD to raise awareness about OCD. OCD is more than what you see on TV and in the movies. Imagine having unwanted thoughts about your relationship stuck in your head all day, no matter how hard you try to make them go away.
That's relationship OCD. It comes with unrelenting, intrusive images, thoughts, and thoughts. And urges about your partner or loved one. Breaking the OCD cycle takes effective treatment. Go to n ocd.com to get evidence-based treatment. Alright, I hope you found this episode insightful and inspiring and giving you that willingness that you can handle ERP.
I know you can do it. Come back next week to hear about school refusal. Some of you are parents or maybe you're a student yourself and you're starting to feel like. You just don't want to go to school. You can't handle it. It's too much. Come back next week to [00:27:30] hear what you can do if you're experiencing refusal in going to school or if your kid is really fighting you tooth and nail about wanting to stay home.
All right. Have a great weekend. Thanks. And I'll see you back here next Friday. Thank you for listening to another episode of Bossing Up Overcoming OCD. This information is intended to be helpful and not a substitute for professional counseling. If you're struggling with any mental health challenges, I encourage you to seek help from a qualified therapist or healthcare professional.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and don't forget to check out the affiliate links in the show notes for handpicked recommendations that can brighten your day. Your support through these links helps keep the show running and provide valuable content.
You're not alone in your journey. Stay strong, stay resilient and keep bossing up. See you next time.
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