What is ERP?

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

ERP is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that is evidence-based and used to treat Anxiety Disorders and OCD. While processing may be a part of therapy, the main focus of ERP therapy is to practice exposure (through confronting the thoughts, objects, situations, and images that make you anxious), and then engaging in response prevention (making a choice to not engage in a behavior or compulsion once the obsession or anxiety has been triggered). In counseling, this looks like the counselor working with you to identify your fears, create structure for how you will expose yourself to those fears, and then doing the exposure work in session. Over time, you will learn to do this on your own, and with practice, find that you are able to continue making progress outside of counseling sessions as well.

Being Uncomfortable “On Purpose”

Anxiety and OCD often feel uncomfortable, and can even sometimes feel unbearable to live with. ERP is the active choice to “be uncomfortable on purpose” in order to give Anxiety and/or OCD less power in your life. There will never be an exposure that is engaged in without client-consent. The counselor may encourage you to continue “being uncomfortable on purpose,” and to actively act-opposite to what Anxiety and OCD are asking of you, and this will always be done in a collaborative way.

Rewire Your Brain

As you choose to “be uncomfortable on purpose,” you help the neural pathways of your brain to make new connections, and to “reconfigure” the way your body is able to tolerate the distress caused from fear and anxiety. As you do this, you find that you are able to tolerate greater levels of uncertainty, that your mind is able to focus on valued-based ways of living and existing in this world, and that you are able to decrease your overall avoidance.