OCD Help by Dr. Jonathan Grayson

Max in a post to this site asked what about convincing someone, with certainty, that they have OCD, since this would be comforting and reassuring. There are three problems with this approach. First, as I’ve noted elsewhere…

Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is the first line treatment for OCD, but no one should do it! I do believe that any sufferer with OCD who would like to be free of this problem would be well advised to choose…

The goal of ERP is NEVER to prove that anything is safe. The goal of treatment is deciding the you need to learn to live with uncertainty. The world is full of low and high probability dangers. You are at greater risk to be in a car accident than you are to suffer from your fears and yet you might risk death to see a movie…

In answer to your question, can scrupulosity be treated with exposure and response prevention? The short answer is yes. Like all OCD, the focus of treatment is learning to live with uncertainty…

Answer to a question about “Gay OCD” and the critical importance of acceptance. There is some discussion of what acceptance and denial are and how to work on obtaining them.

Jonathan Grayson
June 9th, 2009 at 11:08 am · Edit
It is true that many who don’t understand OCD have some difficulty with the idea of treatment. Part of the answer is to check out my blog about normal people don’t know what they are doing. The standards of what they actually think and do are [...]

Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is hard work and it can be terrifying.  We always say that both ritualizing and treatment are difficult and that the only difference is that treatment leads to an end of rituals and avoiding treatment leads to endless rituals.  Nevertheless, ERP is painful and what can you do when you [...]

Canadian with OCD tells us the s/he feels overwhelmed at times and seeks reassurance from others or attempts to reassure her/himself  about self harm.  S/he also notes that listening to the exposure script activates his/her fears.   I know it is really hard to do exposure, but remember, almost all OCD involves trying to attain 100 [...]