How to Deal with OCD Treatment

The OCD treatment that a doctor is likely to use first is exposure treatment-response prevention. Exposure-response is a type of behavioral approach to OCD treatment.

This OCD treatment involves repeatedly exposing the patient to whatever the source of the obsession is. Then the patient is stopped from performing the compulsive ritual he/she typically uses to lessen the anxiety caused by the obsession.

OCD Treatment – Exposure-Response Example

Here's an example of an OCD case and its corresponding exposure treatment-response prevention.

OCD case: Compulsive hand washing

OCD treatment: Touch public restroom door handle but don't wash up

What happens: Patient feels anxiety, but then the urge to go and wash gradually diminishes by itself. Patient learns that hand washing ritual isn't necessary to make anxiety go away.

A qualified therapist must plan and control this kind of OCD treatment. Therapists generally start with an exercise that triggers only low-level anxiety. After the patient has learned to wait out the anxiety without performing the compulsive ritual, he/she will then be exposed to something more challenging.

In the case above, the therapist may ask the patient to touch the toilet flush handle next. After that, the next step could be the seat.

OCD Treatment – Exposure-Response Success Rates

Research shows that exposure-response therapy may retrain the patient's brain to work differently.

What's good about this finding is that it means permanent reduction of the symptoms of OCD, which holds out promise to OCD sufferers that behavioral treatments can completely eliminate OCD!

So what are the chances that exposure-response techniques work? The Academy of Cognitive Therapy says that 75% of OCD patients who complete this OCD treatment report an improvement in the symptoms of OCD.

OCD Treatment – What About Cognitive Therapy?

While behavioral therapy addresses the compulsive behavior, the cognitive approach deals with the patient's catastrophic thoughts. The cognitive technique also deals with the sufferer's unbalanced feelings of responsibility.

The cognitive approach is based on the belief that OCD occurs when: - A person experiences intrusive thoughts and impulses;
- The person regards these as signs that some harm will befall them or their loved ones; and - The person feels responsible for the harmful occurrence because of what the person does or fails to do.

So the main job of the cognitive approach is to confront these unreasonable thoughts and then challenge them.

Most doctors combine behavioral and cognitive techniques. And they've had good, long term success rates (one to six years, with booster sessions) compared to pharmacotherapy (i.e., OCD treatment using drugs), which only works for the short term.