I was wondering if anyone knew more about "overcorrection" as a tool for exposure therapy. I know that ERP is essentially about letting yourself experience the obsession & not perform the compulsion, but should I also be overcorrecting at the same time? For example one of my thoughts is "What if I've left my window down in the rain and my car gets soaked?" For regular ERP I imagine id let myself have the thought & not go check the window & habituate to that. But for overcorrection should I leave my windows rolled down in the rain & habituate to that too? It's odd because I know they are two different things (windows up/windows down), but people are supposed to go above and beyond to overcorrect their fear?
Curious as to what other people's thoughts are. Have you tried overcorrection? How did it go vs. the standard practice of ERP?
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I have not done it much, but I can see how it could help. I think you're basically showing your brain just how much of the feared action you can do without the feared results happening. People might put food on the floor, eat it, and then be much more tolerant of food that might be "contaminated" from touching the counter.
The windows/rain situation might be tricky, because if you do it too much you may really damage your car (mold from soaked upholstery, etc.). But if it's a big hangup for you, you could do it once or twice just to show your OCD that leaving the windows down occasionally is not the end of the world.
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