Joni - Erp

[Guest guest]

Thank you very much - this is extremely helpful - just what I was looking for.

Do you mind just saying yet - how did you know your son had intrusive thoughts

and what were his rituals - ie he was able to go to school pretty well between

breaks? And did you pay like, $5/hour or per ERP or how? I feel I'm bumbling on

the payment and son is getting impatient. It's a new idea to me to pay him for

something like this but I'm HAPPY to if he will do it. For example I said, let's

hang papers around your desk or bed with Dad's name on them. He was totally

resistant. How much should I offer to do that? Or read emails from Dad. How

much? It's easier to pay by the hour isn't it? But what if he stalls and runs

out the hour? He definitely needs money to pay off his new laptop so that's not

the problem.

Rhonda

Re: Sue - Erp

Hello,

My son knew ahead of time that we were going to do exposures. I usually gave

him about a day in advance. I did not always tell him the details of the

exposures, just that it was going to happen. We always did our exposures during

school breaks so my son knew when they were going to happen but when the time

got closer I would tell him the exact day we were to start.

During our sessions, as we came to call them, we would start out the day with

exposures that there fairly hard. The first exposures or series of exposures

would take about an hour - about as long as the both of us could take. For

example, since my son had sexual obsessions one of the first exposures we did

was to read out loud from human sexuality textbooks that are used for teaching

college students. I would read a section and then have my son read a section. Of

course, in the beginning he would pick easier sections but I eventually made him

work up to harder ones. After about an hour of doing this we would take a break,

but then would come back at it. Later in the day, I would sometimes do other

OCD-related things like reading to him from an OCD book (he would never read

about OCD on his own) or do minor exposures, like watching TV programs that

bothered him a little.

I knew that an exposure had a chance of working when I saw my son get upset.

This was hard to watch but at the same time, it told me that we were on the

right track. Sometimes he would even leave the room for a few minutes before he

came back. He needed a few minutes to steady himself for the exposure. I think

that if he had ever readily agreed to do an exposure, I would have thought twice

about it and would probably have tried something else. As for when to stop a

certain exposure - you will probably be able to tell. For me, it was when my son

didn't act like it was bothering him anymore.

Also, please keep in mind that when you start doing exposures, your son might

feel more anxious for a while - mine did. I just kept telling him that his

increased anxiety was telling us that we were on the right track and that soon

he would be feeling better.

As you can tell, I'm a big believer in ERP - I don't know if it can help

everyone to the extent it did my son. I think we all get to our OCD in different

ways, which might mean that it takes different methods to get us better.

ERP worked wonders for my son - we ended up doing 4-5 of our sessions - and

after each time, he was obviously better.

Hope this helps.

Best,

Joni