2026 OCDCon in Seattle, Washington.

But Will I Be OK? Using ERP to Address Reassurance-seeking Compulsions

Reassurance-seeking rituals in OCD are a common form of compulsive checking aimed at assuaging obsessive doubts. These rituals can be challenging for therapists, patients, and families, as they can be cloaked as seemingly benign behaviors. This session will distinguish between helpful information gathering and compulsive reassurance-seeking and teach ERP techniques to address the latter. As reassurance-seeking rituals manifest in many forms minimally captured by standard symptom checklists, various examples will be provided from across common thematic domains, including mental or memory-based, interpersonal, technology-facilitated, and subtle forms of reassurance-seeking compulsions. Using a functional analysis framework, this interactive session will have participants identify reassurance-seeking behaviors and build creative, targeted response prevention plans for these compulsions using a variety of strategies.