ERP is an evidence-based treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and related conditions. ERP helps you gradually face feared thoughts, situations, and sensations without engaging in compulsive behaviors, so you can reduce anxiety and regain control of your life.
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a specialized form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that helps you reduce anxiety by gradually and intentionally facing fear thoughts, situations, or sensations (“exposures”) while refraining from compulsive behaviors or mental rituals (“response prevention”). Overtime this process can help your brain learned that the feared outcome is unlikely to occur and that you can tolerate uncertainty and distress.
ERP is the gold-standard treatment for OCD and can also be helpful for related concerns, including:
ERP is a structured, collaborative process that helps you gradually face your thoughts, situations, or sensations, while resisting the urge to engage in compulsive behaviors. Exposures are tailored to your specific concerns and may involve real life situations, imagery, or intentionally bringing up difficult thoughts. Overtime, ERP can help you reduce anxiety, build confidence, and increase your ability to do the things that are important to you.
If OCD, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts are getting in the way of your life, ERP can help. Our psychologist provide individualized, evidence-based treatment in a supportive environment, so you can face what feels challenging and move toward the life you want.
Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is an evidence-based form of cognitive behavioral therapy commonly used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). ERP helps people gradually face thoughts, situations, sensations, or other triggers that cause distress while practicing not engaging in the compulsions or rituals they typically use to reduce that distress.
Over time, ERP can help people learn that they are capable of experiencing uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and uncertainty without needing to respond with compulsive behaviors. The goal is not to eliminate every unwanted thought or uncomfortable feeling, but to reduce the extent to which fear and compulsions control a person’s life.
ERP is particularly well established as a treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It can be used with many different OCD presentations, including contamination fears, checking, intrusive thoughts, harm-related obsessions, relationship OCD, sexuality-related obsessions, “just-right” experiences, and compulsive reassurance seeking.
Exposure-based approaches may also be used to treat other anxiety-related conditions, although treatment should be tailored to the specific diagnosis and the processes maintaining a person’s symptoms. A careful assessment can help determine whether ERP is the appropriate treatment approach.
ERP works by interrupting the cycle between obsessions, anxiety, and compulsive behaviors. A person with OCD may experience an intrusive thought or other trigger, feel significant distress or uncertainty, and then perform a compulsion to feel safer or obtain relief. Although the compulsion may reduce distress temporarily, that relief can reinforce the cycle and make the urge to perform compulsions stronger in the future.
During ERP, people intentionally practice encountering triggers while reducing or resisting compulsive responses. With repeated practice, they can develop greater tolerance for uncertainty and distress and learn that they do not have to perform a compulsion simply because an uncomfortable thought or feeling is present.
During ERP therapy, you and your therapist typically work together to identify obsessions, triggers, compulsions, avoidance behaviors, and reassurance-seeking patterns. You may develop a plan for gradually practicing exposure to situations, thoughts, images, sensations, or uncertainty that you normally try to avoid or neutralize.
During an exposure, your therapist helps you practice resisting the compulsion or ritual you would ordinarily use to reduce distress. Exposures should be purposeful and individualized rather than simply forcing someone into their worst fear. As treatment progresses, you can practice responding differently to increasingly challenging situations and applying these skills independently in everyday life.
