Justin’s Blog: “The Jog”

“You want me to do what?!” Many of my clients, and particularly for the sake of this article, Christian clients, are a bit surprised when I ask them to practice exposure.  Repeating scary, terrible thoughts on paper or aloud.  Doing things that feel risky.  It seems as a clinician I’m disrespecting your beliefs and don’t […]

Imagine intentionally telling yourself- again and again- “Maybe I’ll get sick and die.”  Or, “I’ll have a sudden urge to kill someone.” Or, “Maybe I blasphemed God and will go to hell.”  What if your therapist asked you to repeat these things to yourself?  Does that sound like negative self-talk?  A cause for grave concern?  […]

One of my first questions to a professor in my earliest IOCDF BTTI (Exposure Therapy training) at Massachusetts General Hospital was, “What happens if someone actually gets sick after a contamination exposure?”  I haven’t forgotten the simplicity of the answer that went something like this: “People get sick all the time. Yes, that might create some additional […]