The OCD Project, Episode 2

Week 2, the show continues to be interesting. The part that resonated the most for me was Dr. Tolin talking about why they need to give up ALL their compulsions: if they don't, if their feared outcome doesn't happen, they'll attribute that to their remaining compulsions, and maintain the fear. That is SO true for me. For months, I've been stopping some but not all of my handwashing. Nothing terrible has happened. Rather than concluding that handwashing isn't protecting me and isn't needed, I've decided that the limited handwashing I'm still doing is the most critical kind, and I need to keep doing it. That's not what I want. Sigh. Point taken, Dr. Tolin.

The one thing I didn't like about this episode is that the therapists seem to be telling the participants that what they fear will "never happen," rather than working with them to accept that sometimes feared outcomes DO happen, but that we have to learn to live with the uncertainty and do those exposures anyway. Maybe that's still to come.