You Need to do Exposures Willingly and Regularly

Hello Everyone,

Now that Spring is almost here I hope that the weather in your part of the world is getting warmer which will allow you to get outside more and enjoy the great outdoors. Here in Oregon where I live Spring is definitely on the horizon.

In my last blog post I shared Guidelines for Doing Exposure Therapy that I had created listing what I believe are some of the important aspects of doing exposure therapy to get the most out of the work that you’re doing. I thought I would continue to expand upon some of those points in that PDF file. 

Accept, Face Your Fears and Be Willing

To better manage your anxiety you have to accept that you must do exposures regularly, you must face whatever you’ve been avoiding and you must do the above willingly (points 1,2 and 3 from the PDF). 

Easy Peasy…right? Nope…very hard to do!!

Managing an anxiety disorder involves making peace with and accepting that there are certain things that you simply must do if you want to get better at managing your anxiety. I’ve written some previous posts about the issue of acceptance.  If you’re doing exposures correctly they will be challenging and will make you uncomfortable and so it is natural to want to avoid doing them, but there is simply no way around the fact that you must do them. 

The “Magic” Ingredient in Exposures

There’s also what you might call “magic” in deliberately creating opportunities to feel uncomfortable and to willingly seek out opportunities to face what you have so carefully avoided in the past. Identifying what you’re afraid of and then making it a point to willingly face that, suggests an important shift in how you’ve decided to approach your anxiety.

White-Knuckling Your Way Through Exposures

If you are  doing the exposures, but are white-knuckling your way through them, they are much less likely to be successful.  As you do the exposures it is important that you also adopt an open, willing and accepting posture towards whatever feelings are going to come up as you do the exposures. In fact, even, as odd as it sounds, hope to feel anxious so that you can learn to manage it (I know how crazy that must sound!). 

For most people this mindset or attitudinal shift can bring about a profound difference in how you think about and try to manage your anxiety. As opposed to dreading and avoiding whatever you’re afraid of, you accept the feelings of dread and urge to avoid and still seek opportunities to face what you’re afraid of. That may seem like a big stretch, but I’ve seen this particular shift bring about remarkable changes in people’s anxiety.

Why Haven’t My Previous Exposures Worked?

“White-knuckling” your way through the exposures may be one of the reasons people don’t benefit as much from exposures as they could. In fact, I’ve seen a number of clients over the years who appeared to be doing exposures regularly but not benefiting and ultimately we decided the reason for that was this unwillingness/lack of acceptance to let themselves fully experience whatever emotions are going to come up as they do the exposures. You must “feel to heal”. To process and get past an emotion you must first fully embrace and experience the emotion. If you get into a pool full of cold water you have to stay in the water, accept the discomfort and then, and only then, can you adjust to the cold water. What at first felt really uncomfortable can become much more manageable and, on a hot day, might even feel good.

As always, I hope you find these posts helpful and let me know if you have any questions. I’m always happy to help. This post isn’t meant as a substitute for therapy and so if you’re struggling with anxiety/OCD please consult a qualified therapist. 

If you know someone who might benefit from this post, please forward it to them and if someone was kind enough to forward this post to you and you’re interested in subscribing you can go here.

If you’re struggling with OCD then you might want to consider attending the annual International Obsessive Compulsive Disorders annual conference this summer in Denver, CO. I’ve attended many conferences and this one is hard to beat.

Stay safe,

Dr Bob