seeking a good cbt strategy for me.

[shambo495]

hi, am shambo from india. am 22 and have just completed my engineering grad. Been through severe ocd for 3 years now. been on clomipramine hcl for last two years.And i responded perfectly to the medicine but whenever medication withdrawal is attempted ,my ocd relapses. In a country like ours it is still a less talked about issue. so am in search of a proper cognitive behavioral therapy strategy. My ocd makes me anxious about some possible dangers to my dear ones. Previously I used to get anxious about some possible fatal road accidents to my parents. That I later overcame by going outside a lot. later i realized it was a kind of exposure and response prevention for me. The two intrusive thought that haunts me most now is from minimal physical intimacy I fear that my gf may get pregnant ant the more powerful and disturbing one is. Around 3 years ago I had my girlfriend's private pictures which I started to fear that can get public. My rituals included overwriting the digital storage multiple times and looking for traces of those private pictures. whenever I require to take my laptop to service center  I start panicking that any sector of my hard disk may still have traces of those pictures. can anyone please suggest me any CBT specially ERP strategies?

[Paxiled]

CBT therapy is best done with a therapist who specializes in it, but if that doesn't exist where you are there are a lot of books out there that teach it.  One long-time book is called the Anxiety and Phobia Workbook or something like that -- it has the name Workbook in it and has been out for many years and revised several times.  But there are many.  There are also programs offered on the internet by supposed CBT specialists, but it's always hard to vouch for anything found solely on the internet.  But if that's all you have, it might be worth a try.  You also might thing about whether you really have OCD or not -- having intrusive thoughts is common to all forms of mental disorders, but you do mention one repetitive behavior.  But OCD is one of the most overdiagnosed and wrongly diagnosed things out there.  True OCD is hard to battle, but if you don't have it, therapy for it is wasting your time, as it is a different problem where you have to stop doing the things you're doing repetitively and learn over time that nothing terrible will happen, whereas the treatment for anxiety involves learning to think differently about the outcomes you think are there and treatment for phobias involves confronting and doing the things you're avoiding.  But they're all anxiety, and CBT involves teaching you to think differently.  However, positive results aren't guaranteed, but as you've learned, medication just covers up symptoms but doesn't cure the problem.  Therapy might.  I'd ask whoever is prescribing your antidepressant if they know of a CBT therapist who practices near to you.

[Paxiled]

And also, if you can't find a therapist, try finding a practitioner of ayurvedic medicine who has an MD.  CBT really comes from techniques that originate in Hindu and Buddhist psychology, and usually includes breathing techniques and meditation and teaching about the mind that has been done in India for centuries.  We kind of stole this from your ancestors, but worked with it and made it more of a system.  Good luck.