Invite the Anxiety: Wilson's Paradoxical Approach to OCD
Fighting or trying to suppress an obsession often amplifies it. Reid Wilson, PhD, a psychologist who has treated OCD since 1983, teaches a paradoxical self-help approach: deliberately invite the anxious feeling rather than resist it, which can paradoxically loosen its grip over time. This is a self-help complement to, never a replacement for, working with an ERP-trained clinician, especially for moderate-to-severe OCD.
Name the trigger and the urge to resist it When an obsession or anxious spike appears, notice both the trigger and your automatic urge to push it away or fight it.
Naming the resistance urge, separately from the obsession itself, is the first step to changing your relationship to it.
Deliberately invite more of the feeling rather than pushing it away Instead of fighting the anxious feeling, practice a 'bring it on' reframing: actively invite more of the sensation rather than resisting it.
Wilson's model holds that resistance is what feeds the obsession's power; deliberately inviting the feeling removes the fuel.
Let the urge to perform a compulsion rise and fall without acting on it Once you have invited the feeling in, let the urge to check, wash, or otherwise perform a compulsion rise and fall on its own, without acting on it.
This is the same underlying principle as response prevention, delivered through an acceptance-based framing rather than a pure exposure-hierarchy framing.
Practice daily with small, deliberately chosen triggers first Build this skill on small, low-stakes triggers before attempting your hardest ones.
Starting small builds the skill and confidence needed before tackling higher-stakes obsessions.
Treat this as a complement to, not a replacement for, clinician-directed ERP For moderate-to-severe OCD, this self-help framing works best alongside, not instead of, ERP delivered by a clinician trained specifically in OCD.
Wilson's own materials present this as an accessible on-ramp and self-help tool, not a substitute for the gold-standard clinical treatment.
Wilson's decades of clinical work and field recognition (ADAA's highest service award in 2014, the International OCD Foundation's Service Award in 2019) sit behind this approach.
View sources
OCD: Want What You Don't Want!
8 OCD Self Help Principles with Reid Wilson (The OCD Stories)
Reid Wilson, PhD - anxieties.com
Not medical advice. This page is for education only and is not a substitute for professional medical care. Consult a qualified clinician before changing your health routine.
Independent curation. YourProtocol is an independent platform. This protocol is based on the publicly available work of Reid Wilson and is not created, reviewed, endorsed by, or affiliated with Reid Wilson or Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center · Chapel Hill/Durham, NC.
Is this for you
- Readers who bounce off a purely clinical, exposure-hierarchy-only framing
- Anyone whose anxiety intensifies the more they try to fight or suppress it
- People looking for a self-help on-ramp alongside, not instead of, ERP with a clinician
Cautions
- Informational only, a self-help complement, not a diagnosis or treatment plan
- Not a replacement for Exposure and Response Prevention delivered by an ERP-trained clinician, especially for moderate-to-severe OCD
- Wilson sells self-help books and a paid course; this page draws only on his freely published, non-commercial content (anxieties.com)
- If you are in crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (US) or your local emergency services