Need advice please, re. helping my teen do ERP homework

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

I am looking for help and advice re. helping my 18 year old daughter

do her ERP " homework " (sessions) at home. We are really stuck here.

My daughter has been in intensive out-patient therapy (twice weekly)

at our hospital here, for 5 months.(Plus many rounds of CBT & ERP in

past years) She is making some, but very slow, progress with the ERP

sessions at the hospital. The challenge is to get her to follow

through and practise the ERP exercises at home. We have tried

everything we can think of to help her do this, and the hospital has

no idea either of what we can do either (they are aware of the

situation because she goes into each session with her homework not

done). The problem here is not motivation. She absolutely wants to

recover, she has real insight into this illness and she IS convinced

that ERP is the way to recovery. She really does want to do ERP. It

was not always this way, but it is now. She goes to her out-patient

ERP therapy ready to work, with a good attitude. The pattern at home

is that she procrastinates most of the day about doing the ERP (she is

not in school because of her OCD), then when she finally tries it, she

can't endure it, can't continue, gets really sad/angry about her

inability to do it, etc. We have tried everything from trying to sit

with her through the process (encouraging, complimenting her efforts,

etc.) to standing back completely and letting her " run the show " and

everything in between. We set up rewards (she chooses them) to follow

immediately after completion of the ERP; this does not work. We have

tried moving down the hierarchy to let her do more " manageable "

exposures; this doesn't work. She is on medication, and we will not

be tinkering with this right now. We are trying to get her to an

inpatient facility, and are waiting for word on government funding but

we won't know the outcome for awhile.... in the meantime, we are

trying to cope on the home front.

Any ideas? I am looking for really practical suggestions here, like:

do you stay in the room with your teens, or out, or nearby? Have you

found any way to encourage them through words or actions? Any unique

ideas for helping her through the process? I would love to hear any

suggestions you have. Thank you everybody, LA in Canada