Two OCD Specialist colleagues (and friends) just having fun on how to write exposure scripts in OCD.
Exposure Therapy, in a phrase, is the systematic and intentional triggering of fear while minimizing- and ideally eliminating- all pathological responses. Imaginal Exposure accomplishes this with thoughts and ideas. It is done in the context of addressing unhelpful/pathological responses to fear.”
- The first thing we do besides offering good education is gaining a strong assessment data- it must underlie good exposure.
- Know what you’re working with.
- Make a list of your obsessions or bothersome thoughts.
- See a specialist.
- Get educated.
- Get to know your symptoms, your motivations for getting better, and start a running log (monitoring) daily.
- Once you have a tally of key examples, placing them on a hierarchy really helps to get a road map and be realistic and also to monitor progress (like the one above for arachnophobia).
- Once you’ve got your hierarchy, we consider conceptualizing the core fear behind an uncomfortable thought or action. Start simple; don’t overthink it.
- When person can tolerate facing their fear at a lower level with scripting (or exposure in general), they can then move up the hierarchy and face higher and higher ones.
Don’t worry if you run into issues- that’s what specialists are for! But also don’t hold out from facing fears that you have a good reason to face. You rock!
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