Shala Nicely, LPC OCD Treatment with ERP Therapy
Shala Nicely, LPC OCD Treatment with ERP Therapy
Getting Unstuck from OCD and Maintaining Your Recovery
Getting traction in OCD recovery is a meaningful achievement. Maintaining it is a different, ongoing skill.
ERP isn’t something you “finish,” even after formal therapy ends. Over time, it becomes a way of responding to fear, discomfort, and uncertainty as life continues to unfold. This page brings together resources that focus on living an ERP lifestyle, handling setbacks without panic or self-criticism, and continuing to move toward a meaningful life even when anxiety shows up.
The pieces below are meant to support steadiness, perspective, and confidence as you practice recovery over the long haul.
You don’t need to engage with all of these at once. Many people return to different pieces at different points in their recovery, depending on what they’re noticing or struggling with at the time.
Living an ERP lifestyle and maintaining progress
Keeping Your OCD Recovery Strong: The ERP Lifestyle
This post explores what it means to live ERP beyond formal treatment, including how everyday choices, habits, and responses can either reinforce recovery or quietly pull OCD back into the picture.
OCD Relapse Prevention and the 50-Pound Backpack
OCD relapses often begin with subtle, easy-to-miss shifts in behavior. This article discusses how returning to everyday ERP principles can prevent old patterns from regaining momentum and highlights practical ways to maintain progress.
How to Maintain OCD Recovery Gains
In this video, Dr. Reid Wilson and I discuss practical steps for maintaining progress over time, including mindset shifts and strategies that support long-term recovery.
When Fear Stops Making Decisions for You
Life opens up when fear no longer makes your choices. This post explores how practicing ERP over time helps shift decision-making away from anxiety and toward the life you want to live, even when uncertainty is still present.
Living an ERP lifestyle and maintaining progress, cont.
Enjoying the Messy, Uncertain Process
OCD recovery unfolds through uncertainty, missteps, and repetition, rather than clean, linear progress. The post helps reframe the ups and downs of recovery as part of the process itself, not evidence that you’re doing something wrong.
The Best TED Talk for People with OCD: Part 1
Explore how letting go of “dead people’s goals” and accepting discomfort as part of a meaningful life can help keep recovery aligned with what matters to you.
The Best TED Talks for People with OCD: Part 5
This piece focuses on stepping outside your comfort zone in ways that support the life you want to live, not the one OCD prefers, and how purposeful discomfort can be part of continuing to live the life you want.
Breaking Out of the OCD Cycle
OCD keeps people caught in repeating cycles of fear, compulsions, and short-term relief, and responding differently over time is what weakens the cycle. This post connects day-to-day ERP practice with the bigger picture of living a life that isn’t organized around OCD’s demands.
ERP Refreshers
Act as Though OCD Is Irrelevant
This post gets to the heart of effective ERP by focusing on responding to OCD in ways that remove its importance, rather than trying to eliminate thoughts or feelings altogether.
The Anatomy of ERP for OCD
If you want a clear, concise refresher on how ERP works and what effective practice looks like, this post breaks it down in a straightforward, practical way.
A Day of ERP (Plus Self-Indulgence vs. Self-Compassion)
Recovery isn’t linear, and this post looks honestly at what it’s like to slip, regroup, and respond with self-compassion rather than criticism when things don’t go as planned.