What is the therapy for reassurances?

April 26, 2009

I have been posting for awhile on the forum. My almost 15 year old son has

greatly lowered his OCD symptoms with the help of Prozac and CBT. The majority

and the worst of it hasn't reared its ugly head for nearly 6 months and we are

so grateful. The one thing he can't seem to shake is his need for reassurances,

mostly when he is in a pressured situation such as before a test, reviewing a

paper, getting up to bat. You can see his 'pressure' threshold is pretty low.

He told me last night that his closest friends have asked him why he always asks

for reassurances (last week he was having a bad golf game, and kept asking " do

you think I'm good? " over and over to his friends.) Much to my surprise, he

told me that he confided in all 3 of them that he has OCD and that it used to be

much worse, but he still has some problems with it. He said 1 friend was very

warm about it, and the other 2 didn't say anything... I can only imagine.

These are teenage boys! We'll see how this all unfolds, I noticed that none of

them called him over the weekend, but that could be my own paranoia. Anyway, I

want to tame the reassurance beast! He doesn't go to therapy anymore and I need

some techniques for handling this at home. When he asks me for repeated

reassurances, I will answer him only once and then remind him that I had already

answered. I need to help him understand that he can't be doing this with people

as it is annoying, odd and makes people uncomfortable. He said he just can't

stop. Suggestions????

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