In OCD treatment, what does ERP involve?

• A. It relies on dream analysis to identify obsessions.
• B. It emphasizes avoidance of feared situations to reduce anxiety.
• C. It involves exposure to feared stimuli and prevention of compulsive responses.
• D. It uses only cognitive strategies without behavioral experiments.

Answer: (C)

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a behavioral approach to OCD where the person is exposed to feared stimuli or thoughts and refrains from performing the accompanying compulsive rituals. Repeated exposure without the ritual leads to habituation, reducing anxiety and weakening the link between obsessions and compulsions over time. Exposures can be real-life (in vivo) or imagined and are often graded from easy to harder challenges, with homework to practice between sessions. This differs from dream analysis, which isn’t part of ERP; ERP also counters avoidance by teaching that approaching feared situations, not avoiding them, reduces anxiety; and it is not limited to cognitive strategies alone, since it centers on observable behavioral change through exposure and prevention.