Reducing Family Accommodation in OCD

Family accommodation is what relatives do, with the best intentions, to spare a loved one the anxiety of an obsession: giving repeated reassurance, helping with or performing rituals, taking over avoided tasks, or rearranging the household around triggers. More accommodation tends to go hand in hand with more severe OCD and a harder time in treatment, because each accommodation teaches the OCD that the feared outcome was avoided only thanks to the ritual.

Use this worksheet to map what the family does now and pick small, agreed steps to do less of it, gradually and together, ideally alongside an ERP plan (ERP, or exposure and response prevention, is the main OCD therapy: facing the fear on purpose while resisting the rituals that usually relieve it). For example, a parent answering "are you sure the door is locked?" five times a night might agree to answer once, calmly, then sit with their child while the worry passes. Reduce accommodation with the person, never to them, and say in advance what is changing so it lands as a team plan, not a test. Expect anxiety to rise at first; that spike is the point.