The gold standard for treating OCD currently is Exposure-and-Response-Prevention behavioral therapy, which is self-help therapy directed by a therapist, but carried out at home. It involves meeting with the therapist once or twice a week, and explaining what you struggle with; what you have to do or think to feel temporarily in control of it. (Doing or thinking these compulsive 'rituals' gives relief that lasts for a few minutes, but then you're back to misery again. It's no help.) From this information, the therapist creates a 5
-minute 'exposure' experience based on your smallest, least difficult ritual
pattern, that you voluntarily go through, that gives you a very small, tolerable feeling of anxiety. Now, instead of thinking or doing the ritual, you prevent yourself from compulsively responding, and in about 5 more minutes the anxiety goes away by itself (it always goes away after a while if we are willing to wait for a few minutes.) Now you and your therapist celebrate your (small but significant) victory, and you are instructed to go home and repeat the therapy yourself 4 times every day. By the end of the week you no longer have the need to ritualize, and you go on to working on more major rituals!