Unlike Choose Your Own Adventure books, therapy is a forgiving process that gives you many potential paths to pursue on your road to recovery.For anyone new to exposure-based therapy, such as exposure and response prevention (ERP), there is often much anticipatory...
Although exposure is predicated upon the purposeful non-avoidance of anxiety-related stimuli, non-avoidance of anxiety triggers is not equivalent to exposure.Anxiety Principle of the Day: Non-Avoidance is not equivalent to exposure. Although exposure is predicated...
Exposure, when done right, is about much more than just habituation.Many people have an incomplete understanding of exposure therapy... ...be it exposure and response prevention (ERP) for OCD, intentional mistake practice for social anxiety, or interoceptive exposures...
You are not your OCD. One important part of OCD treatment involves recognizing that your symptoms do not define you.Question: Because many of my OCD rituals are related to my professional identity, I'm worried that changing my rituals will somehow change those parts...
Some individuals with Pure-O OCD use "starting over", "resetting", or "undoing" compulsions to wipe the mental slate clean.Question: It's hard to describe this, but I feel like every few days I need to mentally "start over" by doing a variety of mental and behavioral...
Regardless of the origins of your child's school refusal, it is important to consider a separate parent-related factor that maintains school refusal: your fear of being perceived as a "bad parent".Like any other behavior, school refusal does not have a singular cause....
School refusal is not a random event. There's usually a reason for why your child might resist going to school.With the summer quickly fading to black and the academic year looming largely, we will soon be entering the season of school refusal. When I use the term...
Because many other conditions can mimic or exacerbate test anxiety, it is important to undergo a thorough diagnostic evaluation before beginning treatment.When considering treatment for test-taking anxiety, make sure that you have a comprehensive diagnostic assessment...
"Intentional Mistake Practice" can be used to challenge the problematic perfectionistic beliefs that are core to social anxiety and OCD.Looking for ways to overcome social anxiety or OCD-related perfectionism? At the end of this post, you'll find some strategies I...
Perfectionism is likely to be helpful in moderation but increasingly problematic when taken to extremes.There is more than one type of perfectionist. First, there is the adaptive perfectionist. This perfectionist is the prototypical workaholic student/employee who...
