Written and clinically reviewed By Dr Elaine Ryan Chartered Psychologist specialising in OCD and anxiety disorders, with over 20 years’ clinical experience.
Dr Elaine RyanThis is one of those topics that doesn’t really get a proper look in until you’ve been in the field a long time. I remember, during my undergraduate degree in psychology, we studied perception in a fairly straightforward way—illusions, visual processing, that sort of thing. Then, later during my professional training, most of the focus … Read more
Why Some Thoughts Stick and Feel So Personal Have you ever noticed that your brain can have thousands of thoughts in a day and most of them just come and go, but then there’s that one—and it gets stuck? Maybe it’s something odd, or upsetting, or just completely out of line with who you are. And … Read more
If you’re experiencing intrusive thoughts about the people you care about most, it can feel deeply upsetting — and frightening. You might wonder, why am I thinking this? or what does it say about me that I can even imagine something like that? You’re not alone. This is something I’ve seen time and again, both in the people … Read more
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a highly effective model of therapy, but most people fear undertaking the exposures if their anxiety gets too high, after all, they have created elaborate compulsions to manage this anxiety and suddenly being told to expose themselves to the things they fear can be a bit daunting. In my … Read more
One of the things I’ve noticed in therapy sessions with clients is that when I explain the concept of Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) many people worry that it will be too much for them, telling that even though they agree in principle with the model, their own particular fears are just too big and … Read more
In my recent articles I’ve mentioned SUDS; Subjective Units of Distress and today I want to explain them in detail as I refer to them often when I teach or talk about Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) for OCD. I’ll try to distill two decades of clinical experience working with individuals with OCD, and provide … Read more