Exposure response prevention known as ERP is a crucial element for successful treatment for OCD. The purpose of exposure work is to disprove the clients irrational core beliefs and in turn help our clients to face and overcome their irrational fears.
OCD is very habitual by nature. A person suffering with OCD has developed an irrational core belief born from their heightened emotional sensitivity and brain lock working together. When treating clients who suffer with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) it is very important that a persons core belief is identified and challenged. The purpose behind ERP is to help disprove the clients irrational core belief. This is done by gradually exposing someone to their fears in a safe controlled environment. We help our clients to face and embrace the feeling of anxiety that comes up for them without doing their safety seeking behavior. Anxiety peaks and then drops. This is the natural process of the energy system of the body. When sufferers do a compulsions it is usually to try to relieve the anxiety and worry that they experience. Of course the relief is only short lived. The cycle of Thought feeling and behavior starts again once there has been a trigger.
We help to break the cycle that clients are trapped in. In our experience working intensively is by far the most effective way of working with OCD.
It is very difficult for an OCD sufferer to do ERP by themselves due to the intensity of their emotions and the misfiring of the error detection circuit within the brain.
The rational brain becomes dimer when the fight & flight response has been triggered. This is why it is not possible to rationalize with OCD.
Sufferers know on one level that their fears and behaviors are not rational but their emotional brain is the stronger of the 2 hemispheres. You need to have exercises to strengthen the left hemisphere which is where mindfulness has it place within treatment for OCD.
Our Intensive courses address everything that one needs to become well and to be free from the chains of OCD.
