Re: new to group - Spitting ERP suggestions

[Guest guest]

Hi -

Welcome to the group. Our daughter is 8 now, and also had an issue with

spitting. She spit if her mouth felt odd, if she felt like there were germs

around, if she had a bad thougth about illness - mostly she felt that she was

spitting germs. She also had a wiping compulsion. We found this to be a very

difficult OCD issue to stop or to do exposure to, as it became both a habit & a

compulsion, and thus very self-reinforcing. Our therapist worked with us to

develop a plan. Here are many of the steps that I recall- we started by tying

spitting & wiping together & did this plan:

* Give her something to do that is incompatible with spitting. So for us,

that was chewing gum or sucking on a lolipop. This gave her something to do,

and the rule was " no spitting while chewing " . This also changed the ritual a

little. After a few days of this, her spitting was way down, and it seemed to

take out a lot of the habit part of this ritual.

* Then we did a few minutes without gum, etc, in order to try to delay the

spitting compulsion. We worked up very slowly to about an hour. This worked

well - however, some other OCD issues popped in, such as scrupulosity about

whether she spit or not, confessions, spitting right before, etc.

* Then we changed to a plan where she would play a hand game with me before

spitting. However, the urge to spit was often so quick, that it was hard for

her to delay.

* Then we moved to a plan where we would still do a time frame for no

spitting, but right before that, we would do a flooding plan - where we

basically tried to have her spit as much as possible, during a 20-30 minute

period, in order to make it boring. We would make up a bad thought (shocking

easy for both of us at this stage) that had at least some basis in her actual

fears - then after the thought, she would spit & wipe. We started with 50

times, and built up from there (be sure to have a new outfit for afterwards,

they will be drenched! This was actually the most successful stage, but I don't

think we could have done this before a lot of the earlier practice, as

deliberately thinking all those thoughts would have been very very difficult a

few weeks ago.

* Finally, our last stage, which we are winding up now, was to agree to take

one part of the ritual (spitting) and agree to try not to spit for an entire

week! Sounded impossible. We tried for about a week, but every afternoon

around 5, she would break down & spit. We did small rewards for the day, so it

was not a complete failure - and to move from nearly nonstop spitting a month

earlier, to one time a day still felt great! But in order to get to the big

goal of an entire week, we had to come up with a " big reward " . We decided on a

night with a friend at Great Wolf Lodge. Another 3 days later, and still no

full days. So then we did a day where if she did not spit until 5 pm, we would

go see the place, so she'd understand how great it is. This was the final

motivation. She is now on day 6, consecutively. She is also not wiping - it

seemed to go with the spitting, and even thought we did not set that goal, it

went away too. Tomorrow is day 7, and we are all so excited. Then she'll need

to try to keep it up, so we'll see how that goes, but I think the habit is

broken, and she knows that she can do it. I expect I'll think up another reward

tomorrow for another week - much smaller this time, but I don't want to lose any

ground here!

Hope this is helpful!

in NC

>

> Hi, I am the mom of a 14 yr old girl with OCD, ADHD and possibily TS.

> I heard about this group at the meeting for the Deecio campers in Seattle. My

daughter was the one " brave girl " . I want to share and find out more, especially

about spitting. The last time I tried this it did not post, I am going to see

if this does. If I am posting in the wrong place please send me a message.

>

[Guest guest]

We have delt with spitting and licking things in the past. The spitting lasted

just a few months then seemed to resolve on its own. It was about a piece of

choclate cake that he had eaten that he did not like and needed to get the taste

out of his mouth. As I said, it lasted for a few months and went away on its

own. My son does tend to " try on " compulsions which last for a few months then

go away. However his " core obsessions/ compulsions " have been constant over

his lifetime( dx agt age 3)The licking was much harder ( seemed to be licking

surfaces ( counters, desks , shoes, seat etc) to clean spots off them ( yuck!).

So our solution was to deal with the spots not the licking per se. I think it

is about getting to the root of what is driving the spitting and licking and and

doing ERP on that issue and then the spitting behavior stops (hopefully).