OCD / Exposure & Response Prevention
A 16-session guided ERP workbook for understanding and treating OCD — from psychoeducation and hierarchy building through subtype-specific exposures to relapse prevention and long-term recovery.
These materials are provided as educational supplements to your treatment. They are not a substitute for professional psychiatric or therapeutic care.
OCD / Exposure & Response Prevention (13 Sessions)
A comprehensive ERP treatment series covering OCD psychoeducation, obsession and compulsion mapping, building exposure hierarchies, response prevention strategies, contamination OCD, symmetry and ordering OCD, Pure O and mental rituals, imaginal exposure, distress management, values-based living, relapse prevention, and long-term maintenance. Sessions 2, 8, and 13 coming soon.
Session 1: Understanding OCD — Your Brain's False Alarm System
NewPsychoeducation on OCD neuroscience, the OCD cycle, how OCD differs from normal worry, and introduction to ERP as the gold-standard treatment.
Session 2: Mapping Your OCD — Identifying Obsessions and Compulsions
NewCataloging your obsessions, compulsions, triggers, and avoidance patterns. Creating a personalized OCD cycle map and impact assessment.
Session 3: The OCD Cycle — How Compulsions Feed Obsessions
NewDeep dive into the behavioral model of OCD, negative reinforcement, how avoidance maintains OCD, and introduction to inhibitory learning.
Session 4: Building Your Exposure Hierarchy
NewIntroduction to SUDS scale, creating a comprehensive fear ladder, identifying exposure targets, and planning your first week of exposures.
Session 5: Beginning Exposures — Your First Steps
NewHow ERP works mechanistically, what to expect during exposures, the habituation curve, and tracking your first exposures.
Session 6: Response Prevention — Breaking the Compulsion Chain
NewStrategies for resisting compulsions, the delay-modify-reduce approach, competing responses, and building a compulsion alternatives toolkit.
Session 7: Working with Contamination OCD
NewSpecialized exposures for contamination fears, graduated touching exercises, contamination-specific response prevention.
Session 8: Working with Harm OCD
NewUnderstanding harm OCD, thought-action fusion, graduated exposure for intrusive harm thoughts, imaginal exposure scripts, and response prevention for harm-related compulsions.
Session 9: Working with Symmetry, Ordering & 'Just Right' OCD
NewUnderstanding the 'not just right' experience, exposures for asymmetry tolerance, imperfection practice exercises.
Session 10: Working with Pure O & Mental Rituals
NewIdentifying covert mental compulsions, ERP adaptations for purely obsessional OCD, uncertainty tolerance, and interrupting mental rituals.
Session 11: Imaginal Exposure — Facing Your Worst Fears
NewWriting imaginal exposure scripts, loop recording technique, sitting with uncertainty, and combining imaginal with in-vivo exposure.
Session 12: Managing Distress During Exposures
NewDistress tolerance for ERP, coping vs. avoidance, willingness vs. white-knuckling, self-compassion, and building emotional resilience.
Session 13: Advanced Exposures — Pushing Your Boundaries
NewInhibitory learning model, combined trigger exposures, extended duration practice, context variation, eliminating safety behaviors, and facing peak-hierarchy fears.
Session 14: Values-Based Living Alongside OCD
NewIdentifying values OCD has obscured, committed action despite obsessions, the OCD vs. values compass, and ACT-informed approaches.
Session 15: Relapse Prevention — Preparing for OCD's Return
NewSlip vs. relapse distinction, early warning signs, high-risk situations, and creating a comprehensive relapse prevention plan.
Session 16: Your OCD Recovery Maintenance Plan
NewConsolidating gains, ongoing exposure schedule, when to seek additional help, letter to future self, and long-term recovery roadmap.