ANXIETY SPECIALISTS BLOG

Response prevention sounds simple.You just don’t do the compulsion. But if you’ve ever tried to stop checking, stop seeking reassurance, or stop mentally reviewing, you know that simple doesn’t mean easy.

Here’s what makes it so hard and how Inference-Based CBT (ICBT) reframes response prevention in a way that actually makes sense when you’re in the thick of it.

We’ll cover why OCD compulsions are so hard to stop, what response prevention is really asking of you, how to practice it step by step, and why slipping up doesn’t mean you’re failing.

Why OCD Compulsions Are So Hard to Stop

You already know compulsions don’t solve anything. They don’t quiet the thoughts for long. The anxiety always comes back. But in the moment, they feel absolutely necessary.

In ICBT, we look at compulsions as responses to a story your mind is telling (about what’s happening but also about the kind of person you are) not to something that’s actually happening in the real world. OCD starts with a what-if:

• What if I just hit someone with my car?
• What if I secretly want to cheat?
• What if I’m not who I think I am?

Compulsions are your OCD brain’s attempt to solve these scenarios. The problem is that they’re not real situations. They’re inferences – possibilities your mind has generated.

It gets tricky when your brain treats these possibilities like they need to be resolved. It’s not that you’re irrational or broken. It’s that OCD has created what we call wonky reasoning, it’s a blind spot where imagined possibilities feel as urgent as observed reality.

Sometimes it’s helpful to think about it like this, f you actually saw yourself hit someone with your car, you wouldn’t need to check. You’d know. The compulsion exists because you’re trying to solve for something you didn’t observe,  something your mind is inferring might have happened.

Response prevention isn’t about white-knuckling through discomfort. It’s about recognizing “I don’t need to react to this story. I can step out instead.”

What Response Prevention Is Really Asking You to Do

Traditional exposure and response prevention (ERP) can feel like “Don’t do the compulsion, even though every cell in your body is screaming at you to do it.” Which, understandably, is really challenging.

The standard ERP explanation goes something like “if you sit with the anxiety long enough without doing the compulsion, your anxiety will eventually come down. You’ll learn that anxiety is tolerable and that you can handle it and over time, the obsessions will lose their power.”

And for a lot of people, that works. But for others, especially those dealing with obsessional doubt and mental checking or harm/taboo themes it can feel like you’re just white-knuckling through torture without any real change happening.

Through an ICBT lens, the focus is different. Instead of trying to show that you can tolerate anxiety, you’re making a different choice: “I don’t have evidence this story is real, so I won’t act on it. My compulsions aren’t necessary in the first place”

Maybe it seems subtle, but it matters. You’re not building anxiety tolerance. You’re not testing whether your fears come true. You’re recognizing that the whole premise, that the story OCD is telling,  isn’t based in observed reality.

Response prevention isn’t about fighting OCD until you find relief. It’s about relating to your thoughts differently,  stepping back from the story rather than trying to solve or disprove it.

How to Stop OCD Compulsions Through an ICBT Lens

1. Identify the Story OCD Wants You to Solve

Catch the “what if” moment. Notice when your thoughts shift from what you can actually observe to hypothetical threats.

This takes practice. OCD thoughts can feel so real, so urgent, that the line between observation and inference gets blurry fast.

Ask yourself… “Did I observe this, or am I imagining it could be true?” If you didn’t see it, hear it, or directly experience it through your senses, it’s an inference, not a fact that needs solving.

2. Recognize the Compulsion Loop

What comes next… Googling? Asking for reassurance? Checking? Mentally reviewing the situation over and over?

Just catching the loop is progress. It means your awareness is growing. You’re starting to see the pattern that OCD throws out a “what if,” and your brain immediately wants to solve it.

3. Pause and Reorient to What’s Real

Instead of telling yourself “it’s just OCD” (which often doesn’t help when the thoughts feel so convincing), ask yourself about what your senses are telling you right now.

Look around… What do you actually see? What do you actually know based on what you observed , not on what you’re imagining might be true?

This isn’t about reassuring yourself that everything’s fine. It’s about grounding yourself in lived experience, not hypotheticals.

4. Resist the Urge to Re-Engage

This is the heart of response prevention. You’re not pushing thoughts away or forcing yourself to tolerate them. You’re calmly choosing not to pick the story back up.

The obsession might keep showing up. That’s normal. But you don’t have to engage with it. You don’t have to solve it, figure it out, or prove it wrong.

You can let it be background noise while you move forward with what you were actually doing.

What Gets in the Way When Stopping Compulsions

The biggest obstacle to response prevention is the thought that this time is different. This time, the threat feels real. This time, you really should check.

OCD is really good at making each obsession feel uniquely urgent and legitimate. It’s convincing. It’ gives you really good “reasons.” It makes you doubt your own judgment about what’s real and what’s inferred.

Another common trap is trying to use response prevention as a compulsion. You might think, “If I just resist perfectly enough, the anxiety will go away and that will prove I’m okay.” But that’s still solving. That’s still trying to get certainty.

Response prevention isn’t about achieving a feeling of certainty or relief. It’s about living your life based on what you observe, not on what OCD infers.

The Hard Truth About OCD Recovery

OCD pushes you to solve, analyze, and check. You will slip back into compulsions sometimes – not because you’re weak, but because this work is genuinely difficult.

Recovery isn’t linear. There will be days when you catch the loop early and step out cleanly. And there will be days when you’re two hours deep into mental checking before you even realize what happened.

Both are part of the process.

Through ICBT, the goal isn’t to tolerate anxiety until it fades. The goal is to stop buying into the story in the first place. To recognize when your mind has shifted from observed reality to imagined possibility – and to choose not to follow it down that path.

Freedom comes when you stop trying to solve OCD’s demands and start trusting your real reasoning again.

Looking for More Information?

If your OCD thoughts feel overwhelming or “too real,” my free guide walks you through what’s actually happening in your brain and what to do about it. Download below to learn even more about ICBT and how you can get unstuck.