OCD-Selfhelp is a support group for people, over the age of eighteen, with OCD who are ready to start taking some action to overcome the control OCD has on their lives. We work on confronting --not so much on managing or accommodating or accepting-- the compulsions that take up our time and cause so much discomfort, as well as the obsessive fears that cause our anxiety and trigger the compulsions. We do that through self-therapy (or with your therapist if you have one) using Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), primarily through Exposure & Ritual Prevention (ERP). In ERP we face our fears by deliberately causing the anxiety, but not doing any of the rituals we're used to doing to try to calm ourselves.

We do that by identifying the obsessions that trouble us, and the rituals we do to relieve our anxiety. Then we set goals for which of our fears we're going to tackle, and then we practice practice practice. If you need help identifying fears or rituals, or prioritizing them in the order you want to work on them, or you're not sure how to do exposures, or if you have successes or challenges or just want feedback, that's what the rest of us are here for. We're all at different stages of "overcoming" and everyone has something to offer.

Those requesting to join are automatically sent a questionnaire that MUST BE filled out and submitted. This group is small and designed to be interactive, with frequent posting on everyone's part. If you are primarily interested only in gathering information through reading other people's postings, there are other OCD groups online. In order to keep the group active, each member MUST POST a minimum of once every two weeks, in order to remain in the group. Also, we require that new members post within three days of admission.