Shala Nicely, LPC OCD Treatment with ERP Therapy
Shala Nicely, LPC OCD Treatment with ERP Therapy
OCD & ERP
If you’re living with OCD and your mind feels busy, loud, or stuck in loops, learning can feel both helpful and overwhelming, even when you genuinely want to learn about OCD and ERP.
This page is here to make it easier to find clear, compassionate resources, without having to figure out where to start or what applies to you. You don’t have to take everything in at once. You can begin wherever feels most supportive today.
If you’re newer to ERP, or if you want a steadier foundation before diving into blog posts, the What is ERP? page is a good place to start. It walks through what ERP actually is, how it works, and what it’s meant to help you do, so you can decide what feels like the next step.
From there, many people choose a blog post that matches what they’re struggling with right now and branch out as questions come up.
Learning about OCD and ERP isn’t about collecting more information. It’s about finding explanations that reduce shame, make sense of what’s happening, and support real change over time.
You’re allowed to take this one step at a time.
Monthly insights that bring clarity to OCD recovery
If you’re learning about OCD and ERP but still feel stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure what to focus on next, the monthly OCD newsletter, Shoulders Back, offers a more focused way to continue.
Each issue explores one subtle pattern that can quietly interfere with recovery and is easy to miss when you’re trying hard to do ERP “right.”
You’ll also receive a free guide on responding to OCD when anxiety won’t let up, which many people use as a starting point.
Blog posts to help you learn about OCD and ERP
If you’re spending a lot of time in your head and trying to make sense of your thoughts, feelings, or urges, this is often the best place to start.
My blog posts focus on the parts of OCD that tend to keep people stuck the longest, especially mental compulsions and hidden compulsions. Many posts also explore why ERP can feel confusing or stop working the way you expected, particularly when subtle compulsions, trauma history, or perfectionism quietly get in the way. Throughout each blog, I share both clinical insight and lived experience to help you understand what’s happening and how to respond in ways that support real recovery.
If you’d like help finding posts that match what you’re dealing with right now, you can also visit Get Unstuck, a section of the site designed to help you navigate directly to posts based on what you’re dealing with right now, like rumination, hidden compulsions, trauma-related OCD, technology compulsions, adopting a recovery-empowering attitude, or maintaining progress over time.
Podcasts and Media
If you prefer to listen or want to hear real conversations about OCD and recovery, this section may feel more accessible.
Here you’ll find podcast episodes, media features, and interviews where I discuss OCD, ERP, and recovery from both a clinical and lived-experience perspective. These include conversations on Your Anxiety Toolkit with Kimberley Quinlan and The OCD Stories with Stuart Ralph, along with other interviews focused on understanding OCD more clearly and learning how to respond to it in empowered, recovery-supportive ways.
Many people find listening helps concepts land in a different way, especially when reading feels like too much.
Courses to help you learn about OCD and ERP
If you’re looking for more structured, step-by-step learning, these courses provide guided education you can move through on your own schedule.
Mastering the Subtleties of ERP focuses on the often-missed aspects of OCD and ERP, especially the subtle compulsions that can quietly interfere with progress.
I also recommend Your OCD Toolkit and Rumination Reset, created by Kimberley Quinlan. I’m an affiliate for Kimberley’s courses, and I recommend them because they align with how I understand and teach ERP, with an emphasis on compassion, clarity, and sustainable practice.
These options can be helpful if you want clearer direction without having to piece everything together on your own.
Books about OCD and ERP
Is Fred in the Refrigerator? Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life
My memoir about living with OCD, written in the style of a suspense novel. It shares what it was like to struggle for years without the right treatment, and how learning to use ERP in a realistic, imperfect way helped me reclaim my life. Readers often tell me it helps them feel less alone, and loved ones say it helps them understand what having OCD and doing ERP actually feels like from the inside.
Everyday Mindfulness for OCD
Co-written with Jon Hershfield, Director of The Center for OCD and Anxiety at Sheppard Pratt, this book offers practical skills for responding differently to intrusive thoughts and anxiety in daily life. The book focuses on building awareness and flexibility in ways that support ERP, without turning mindfulness into another thing to do perfectly.