Verified by 
Key points
- Not everyone is ready for the rigors of ERP.
- Working on psychological flexibility is a relatively easy way to weaken OCD.
- ERD can often help people get ready for ERP and is a powerful method in itself.
OCD is a potentially crippling condition that if left untreated can straightjacket a person's life with immobilizing anxiety and time-wasting, self-defeating, and socially destructive rituals.
The good news is there’s an extremely effective, non-medical treatment that’s been proven to work wonders on OCD: exposure and response/ritual prevention (ERP). But as I’ve written about in previous posts, doing ERP requires real commitment, determination, and grit. For people suffering from OCD who are not quite ready to undertake the rigors of ERP, here are three much easier ways to loosen the straps of the OCD straitjacket: psychological flexibility, ERD, and cognitive correction.
Psychological Flexibility
Most people know the importance of becoming and remaining physically flexible. But surprisingly few people understand the importance of working on their psychological flexibility. Nevertheless, psychological flexibility is very important for staying emotionally fit and mentally nimble. This is especially helpful in prying loose the grip of OCD because many people with OCD strengthen the illness by sticking to rigid patterns of routine behavior and compulsive rituals. Here are some ways to work on your psychological range of motion, and, in so doing, give OCD a serious punch in the eye.
First, try to keep your mind stimulated by learning something new every day, if possible. It needn't be anything complicated or long. Simply trying to commit a new word, historical date, artist's name, or bit of trivia to memory is great mental exercise that activates parts of the brain in novel ways that causes it to stretch, much like a joint or muscle, thus increasing its range of motion.
Second, do something differently, often. That is, consistently introduce some changes in familiar routines and habits that are not necessarily OCD rituals. For example, if you're in the habit of sitting in the same place while watching TV, sit in a different place once in a while. If you always hold your coffee cup with your dominant hand, have a cup while using your other hand. By mixing it up like this you again recruit pathways in the brain that are not as active as the ones used by the default behavior thus providing another flexibility stimulus for your mind.
Third, do different things. Instead of doing the "same old, same old," do something different on a regular basis. For instance, have some tea instead of coffee; wear different clothes than usual; hit the stationary bike instead of the elliptical at the gym; order some different dishes when you get takeout; etc. This, too, activates and stimulates the brain in novel ways which helps keep the mind and psyche more balanced and nimble.
ERD
ERD stands for, “exposure and ritual/response delay.” ERD is very similar to ERP with one notable difference. Unlike ERP that requires people to refrain from doing a ritual completely until their anxiety has significantly subsided, ERD simply asks that people postpone doing the ritual for a specific amount of time. After that, the aim is to gradually extend the time before engaging in the ritual. Eventually, the ritual delay becomes so long that the anxiety compelling the ritual often diminishes to a point where the ritual is no longer “necessary.“
Cognitive Correction
People with OCD usually suffer from intense torrents of anxiety involving extremely exaggerated thoughts of threat, risk, or danger. Indeed, these dramatic thoughts help drive the engine of OCD by compelling sufferers to do rituals. But more compelling than the anxious thoughts are the awful feelings and sensations of high anxiety. This is why “emotional reasoning”—the idea that because one feels strongly about something it must be true—also powers the engine of OCD. Hence, a person with OCD irrationally feels they’ve been contaminated, hurt someone, committed a crime or act of sacrilege, etc. and thus it must be true despite all evidence to the contrary. In other words, OCD suffers confuse their subjective feelings with objective facts. This is partly why a person with germaphobic OCD, for example, will wash far beyond the point of factual cleanliness until they feel they are clean enough.
This is why reminding yourself that a thought or feeling is not a fact is useful. It doesn’t matter what you think, all that counts is how you act. One of the few things we human beings have almost total control of is our voluntary behavior. We can, and do, mostly choose how to move, act and behave.
So, whenever possible, navigating from the compass of objective and agreed-upon facts rather than personal feelings that are often off-base can provide a powerful course correction to the potentially devastating trajectory of OCD.
Another crucial OCD idea states that the anxiety you experience if you don't do a ritual is how it feels when your brain is trying to normalize its balance and function. So the pain (of anxiety) that you feel is your brain trying to heal.
To recap, even without committing to ERP a person can significantly reduce their OCD symptoms by working on psychological flexibility, undertaking progressively challenging ERD, and consistently reminding oneself, “The thought or feeling is not a fact. All that really counts is how I act, “ and, “The pain that I feel is my brain trying to heal,” can put a significant crimp in the fuel line that powers OCD’s engine.
Remember: Think well, Act well, Feel well, Be well!
Copyright 2021 Clifford N. Lazarus, Ph.D. This post is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional assistance or personal mental health treatment by a qualified clinician.
Dear Reader: The advertisements contained in this post do not necessarily reflect my opinions nor are they endorsed by me. —Clifford
