Can Virtual ERP help in treating OCD?


 OCD (Obsessive Compulsion Disorder) is one of the most devitalizing and prevalent condition in the world. It affects around 2.3% of population in their lifetime. OCD is a chronic condition and it is characterized by intrusive, distressing thoughts along with some repetitive behaviors that are aimed at reducing the stress developed.

With OCD, a person’s behaviors might just temporarily relieve discomfort and actually make their stress worse in the future. With OCD, a person can ruin his life, but the condition is highly treatable and manageable with ERP (Exposure and response prevention) therapy.


ERP is very popular in offering OCD help and it is also considered as a gold standard treatment. It is an evidence-based treatment, which has consistently demonstrated excellent outcomes in the treatment of OCD. ERP works by purposely throwing people into certain conditions and then teaching them the right ways to deal with these conditions. As people become habituated with the distress, the automatically reduce their reliance on compulsions. Eventually, they spend less time and energy in avoiding distress.


Despite the efficacy of this treatment, it is still underused. The prominent reasons have been historically related to the limitations in the access to care for the majority of the individuals with OCD and other related conditions. The actual reasons could be scarcity of adequately trained ERP therapist, the lack of geographical locations with OCD specialists, and things like time and cost barriers.


In such cases, online ERP does its work very well. If someone cannot attend an ERP session in person, the online sessions through video conferencing do the needful.

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