Treatments · Exposure & Response Prevention
Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) in Burlington & Ontario
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is an evidence-based treatment for OCD and anxiety-related concerns. It helps you gradually approach the thoughts, sensations, situations, and uncertainty you fear while practicing new ways of responding instead of relying on compulsions or avoidance.
ERP is more than facing your fears.
Exposure and Response Prevention, or ERP, is a behavioural therapy that helps change the cycle between fear and the things you do to feel safer.
The exposure part involves intentionally and gradually approaching thoughts, situations, sensations, or experiences that bring up anxiety or uncertainty. The response prevention part involves practicing not doing the compulsions, avoidance, reassurance seeking, or safety behaviours you would normally use to reduce that discomfort.
The goal isn't to prove that your fear won't happen or to make anxiety disappear. Instead, ERP creates opportunities to learn that you can experience fear and uncertainty without automatically responding to them.
Over time, this new learning can make feared experiences feel less important and reduce the amount of your life organized around preventing, avoiding, or figuring them out.
What ERP can help with.
ERP can be helpful when fear leads to avoidance, compulsions, or other behaviours aimed at preventing something bad from happening or making discomfort go away. It is commonly used to treat OCD and a range of anxiety-related concerns.
Generalized Anxiety & Chronic Worry
Address excessive worry, worst-case thinking, and difficulty tolerating uncertainty.
Phobias
Address cycles of fear, avoidance, and safety behaviours that keep phobias going.
Social Anxiety
Work with fear of judgment, self-consciousness, avoidance, and overthinking social interactions.
OCD & Intrusive Thoughts
Understand how intrusive thoughts, anxiety, compulsions, and attempts to gain certainty interact.
Health Anxiety
Reduce cycles of body scanning, checking, reassurance seeking, and worry about your health.
Panic Attacks & Panic Disorder
Understand the panic cycle and reduce fear of physical sensations and future panic attacks.
Changes you might notice with ERP at Ascend
New learning happens by doing things differently.
Approaching instead of avoiding
Gradually practice facing situations, thoughts, sensations, or experiences that fear has taught you to avoid.
Reducing compulsions and safety behaviours
Practice resisting the checking, reassurance, rituals, avoidance, or other responses that provide temporary relief.
Learning through experience
Give your brain opportunities to learn something new rather than relying on anxiety's predictions about what might happen.
Exposure should have a purpose.
At Ascend, we don't use exposure simply for the sake of making you anxious. ERP is based on understanding what keeps your individual fear cycle going and creating experiences that help you learn something different.
Your therapist will work collaboratively with you to identify what you're avoiding, the compulsions or safety behaviours you rely on, and where exposure may be helpful. Exposures are individualized and can take place both during sessions and in everyday life between appointments.
We may also integrate CBT and ACT when they complement the work you're doing in ERP. You don't need to know which approach you need before starting therapy. We'll help you determine what makes sense for what you're experiencing.
ERP At Ascend
Frequently Asked Questions About ERP Therapy
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ERP is a behavioural therapy that involves gradually approaching feared thoughts, situations, sensations, or experiences while reducing the compulsions, avoidance, or safety behaviours you normally use to manage anxiety.
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No. ERP is particularly well established as a treatment for OCD, but exposure-based approaches are also used to treat phobias, panic, social anxiety, health anxiety, emetophobia, and other anxiety-related concerns.
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No. ERP is collaborative and planned intentionally. You and your therapist decide what exposures to work on, and treatment typically progresses based on your individual goals and what will create useful learning.
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No. Anxiety may decrease over time, but eliminating anxiety during an exposure isn't the goal. ERP helps you learn that anxiety and uncertainty can be experienced without automatically escaping, avoiding, or performing a compulsion.
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Response prevention means reducing the behaviours you typically use to relieve anxiety or gain certainty. Depending on the concern, this could include checking, reassurance seeking, researching, mental reviewing, rituals, avoidance, or other safety behaviours.
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ERP can address mental compulsions too. Rumination, reviewing memories, mentally checking your feelings, repeating phrases, analyzing thoughts, and trying to reach certainty internally can all become part of the OCD cycle.
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Yes. Many exposures can be completed effectively during virtual sessions or planned for you to practice in your everyday environment. We offer virtual ERP therapy across Ontario as well as in-person sessions in Burlington.
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There isn't one set timeline. The length of treatment depends on what you're experiencing, how much the fear is affecting your life, the behaviours maintaining it, and your individual treatment goals.
Meet Our ERP Therapists
At Ascend Anxiety Clinic, our therapists have focused training in exposure-based treatment for OCD and anxiety-related concerns. We use ERP collaboratively and intentionally, tailoring exposure work to your individual fears, compulsions, avoidance, and treatment goals rather than following a one-size-fits-all hierarchy.
Jordan Best
Emma Weber
Ready to get started?
Connect with one of our therapists to learn more about ERP and whether it might be a good fit for what you're experiencing. Complete the form below and we'll be in touch to help you find the right next step.