Chaining is a form of abstaining from compulsions. Chaining involves identifying a thought as an intrusive thought, allowing the thought to be present, allowing the anxious, painful feelings to be present, and abstaining from compulsions for a period of time.

Overcoming OCD almost always requires commitment. Most of us with OCD won’t follow through with enough exposure and response prevention exercises because we feel like it. It’s rare to want to complete an exposure. We participate in ERP, not because it feels good, but because we’ve decided to take the calculated risk of participating in ERP.

Cognitive flexibility can include practicing deliberately participating in meaningful activities while intentionally holding intrusive thoughts in mind (and allowing the related anxious, painful feelings to be present).

ERP treatment involves exposures combined with response prevention. Exposures are when you deliberately confront situations that scare you and response prevention is abstaining from the safety behaviors you typically use to reduce your anxiety (e.g., checking, analyzing/ruminating, washing, avoiding, etc). 

ERP helps us overcome OCD by helping us develop new skills and learn from new experiences. We have to establish the foundation on which all our later ERP-related work will rest. That foundation is understanding what values we care about that would motivate us to be willing to taking calculated risks and accept living with uncertainty without completing our safety behaviors.

Thought-action fusion (TAF) is an important part of most OCD presentations. It’s very helpful to understand what TAF is and how it relates to OCD treatment because important misunderstandings found within TAF play a central role in maintaining OCD.

OCD always includes compulsions. Sometimes compulsions are physical behaviors, like washing your hands or asking for reassurance. Other times, the compulsions are mental. What do mental compulsions look like? How do they work? And what should we do about them? Learn more about mental compulsions in this post.

ERP is the most well-researched form of treatment for OCD. But what is it? When is it used? And how does it work? This is the first of a three-post series on ERP.

OCD involves “metacognitions”. What are metacognitions? How are they related to OCD? And how are they involved in OCD treatment? Learn more about this important and misunderstood subject!

What are intrusive thoughts? Why do we have them? Does everyone have intrusive thoughts? What can we do to reduce them? This post reviews what intrusive thoughts are, the research surrounding them, and how this is involved in OCD treatment.

As an OCD specialist, I’ve worked with so many clients who were in therapy, sometimes for years, before they realized they weren’t working with a therapist that can actually help. Here are 5 tips to help you avoid that.

Learn the reasons intrusive thoughts won’t go away and why Exposure and Response Prevention treatment is the preferred method to controlling them.