If ERP Didn’t Work for You, You’re Not the Problem
What should you do when ERP didn’t work for you? If you’ve done ERP and still feel like OCD is controlling your life, it’s not because you weren’t trying hard enough.
That’s one of the things I often hear from clients who’ve followed the hierarchy, stuck with the exposures, and still feel stuck. Not always because ERP didn’t help at all, but because it only seemed to get them partway there. Like they made progress but never fully turned the corner or moved to a point of recover.
For some people, ERP can sometimes feel like an endless game of whack-a-mole. Just as they start to get relief from one theme, like contamination fears, their brain jumps to relationship obsessions. Then it’s sexual orientation OCD. The targets keep shifting, and they’re constantly scrambling to create new exposures. Not just hard but exhausting.
Some people also start to feel like they’re just pushing through symptoms without understanding what’s driving them. They say things like, “I’m doing the exposures but I don’t understand why this keeps happening to me” Or, “I can sit with the uncertainty, but I’m tired of feeling like I have to.” ERP doesn’t always have a satisfying way of handling these. And without that understanding, it’s easy to feel like you’re missing something.
Why ERP Feels Like It’s Helping… Until It Doesn’t
ERP is designed to help you stop avoiding the things OCD tells you are dangerous. Decreasing avoidance and resuming activities that you enjoy and that you feel good about (like driving or taking care of your kids) is so powerful. Over time, people often start to feel braver, more capable, and less trapped by their anxiety.
But sometimes what we find is that if we don’t address how your brain got tricked into treating that thought as a real threat in the first place—it can leave some big gaps in your recovery.
You can build up tolerance for distress and still feel baffled by why your brain latched onto this obsession. Still feel overwhelmed by a sense of danger that doesn’t line up with your values or your reality.
That’s where Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) comes in. ICBT doesn’t just look at what you do in response to an obsession, it looks at how you got there in the first place. What story did your brain construct? What faulty inference led you from a fleeting idea to a consuming fear?
What makes ICBT different? I think it’s the understanding of how OCD creates obsessional doubt. It convinces you that an imagined possibility is actually probable, urgent, and meaningful. Once you start to see that process clearly, the power of the obsession starts to unravel.
One person in my online group program recently said he’d cut his checking rituals in half. He did this not by forcing himself to stop, but because he finally saw that the whole urge was built on a false premise. The story didn’t make sense anymore. And when that happened, the compulsion didn’t feel necessary. That’s the kind of shift ICBT can support. (Curious about the group?)
What ICBT Adds That Explains Why Sometimes ERP Doesn’t Work
ERP is about what you do. ICBT is about how you think and more specifically, how you reason.
In ERP, the work is to face the fear and resist the compulsion. With ICBT, the work is to recognize the faulty reasoning that made the obsession feel like a real threat in the first place.
This is a big difference. Because when you dismantle the story that OCD built (the one that says, “You need to be 100% certain or something terrible will happen”) you stop needing to do so much work to resist the compulsion. The grip just loosens.
That doesn’t mean ERP is bad. In fact, I often use both approaches. ICBT can soften the obsession so that ERP feels less overwhelming. Or help people understand the common thread behind different OCD themes, so they’re not thrown off every time a new one pops up.
So if ERP hasn’t been enough for you, it doesn’t mean you’re out of options. It just means you might need a different kind of support. Something that helps you understand your OCD differently so you’re not just reacting to it, but actually stepping outside of the pattern.
You can read more about how ICBT and ERP are different here.
A Quick Note About Group Programs
OCD treatment can be expensive, and finding a provider who really understands your experience isn’t always easy. Even when people do find someone, the cost and logistics can be a real barrier.
That’s part of why I offer a group option. It’s not “cheaper therapy,” it’s a different format, built to give you access to the same material I use in one-on-one work.
Group members get access to recorded video lessons that walk through the ICBT framework step by step You’ll also get a digital workbook to help you apply the skills in your real life, and live calls where we talk through what’s working, what’s still hard, and what to try next.
And honestly, some of the biggest “aha” moments come when someone hears another group member describe exactly what they’ve been struggling with—maybe in a slightly different context, but with the same emotional core. That shared understanding can make a huge difference in how hopeful people feel.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve been feeling like ERP doesn’t work for you and you’re feeling stuck, it’s not a sign that you’ve failed. It might just mean ERP isn’t the right fit for you.
ICBT offers a different way of understanding your OCD and helps you understand why certain thoughts feel real, and what keeps pulling you back into the loop. When you start to see that clearly, things begin to shift. Not because you’re fighting harder, but because you’re finally seeing OCD for what it is.
If any of this sounds familiar, I made a short, 15 minute free class that walks through how OCD keeps you stuck and some things you can try to start to step out of those thought loops. I hope it helps!
