Exposure/Response Prevention Therapy

I struggle a lot with weird compulsions. The most prominent one is that if someone tells me “bye” then I feel compelled to “cancel it out” by saying “see you later”. If I see anything disturbing, such as a billboard for MD Anderson cancer center, I grit my teeth to “cancel it out”. Lots of things I feel like I have to do seven times to feel “right” even if only once does the trick (such as locking my car or turning off burners). I don’t turn the burners on and off seven times, I turn it to the left seven times if it’s already off. 

Most people would say this is classic OCD.  I always ran into trouble getting a diagnosis, though. From people thinking I “came from a good family” when I was younger to once I got older people thinking OCD required a hand washing compulsion that I don’t have, the actual formal label always eluded me. My current therapist, however, validated it immediately. “That’s classic OCD,” she literally said. Oh ok. I can only give so much credibility to labels when I spent so many decades as someone otherwise undeserving of help for whatever reason. 

My therapist also sent me a handout for exposure and response prevention therapy or ERP.

Now, someone pleas help me out with this if you can. Please hold my hand like I’m five and tell me what I’m missing. 

If I went to my conservative elderly uncle and said, “I’m struggling with this.” And described to him the compulsions, he’d likely say, “Just don’t do those things.”  And in response to that, what would any proponent of mental health care say?  They would say, “Don’t settle for someone telling you to just not do something! Go to a real therapist who is licensed in this sort of thing!”  

That sort of response suggests that the actual treatment for OCD compulsions contain something more. But just look over these two handouts and tell me-

Isn’t this just a professional way of telling someone “Just don’t do the thing”?  That’s all this method essentially is. Instead of going to some random family or friend and having them tell you “Just don’t do the thing”, you can pay a lot of money and have professionals tell you to just not do the thing. They might make it look prettier, but they’re literally just, that’s all they’re saying here. 

If I’m missing something, please comment and tell me what I’m missing!  I’m 100% open to learning!