Unfortunately, about half of all patients with OCD fail to respond to traditional medications. Moreover, OCD requires using higher doses of these medicines, which comes at the cost of serious side effects, causing patients to stop their treatment. Even in patients who do take their medications as prescribed, it’s seen that there is never a complete relief from symptoms.
Another option commonly employed by practitioners for OCD is behavioral therapy in the form of exposure and response prevention (ERP) and cognitive therapy. ERP involves exposing the patient to the very cues that evoke distressing and obsessive thoughts. That said, patients often feel frustrated after being exposed to distressing cues, resulting in high dropout rates from behavioral therapies.