Accommodation occurs when family members change routines, provide reassurance, participate in rituals, or help someone avoid distress in an effort to reduce anxiety. Although accommodation often comes from a place of care, it can unintentionally reinforce anxiety and OCD over time.

Has your child’s anxiety or OCD begun affecting your entire family? Learn the 10 signs that anxiety may be shaping your family’s routines, relationships, and decisions, and how parents can respond in ways that build confidence instead of reinforcing anxiety.

Many parents feel stuck when a child refuses therapy for OCD or anxiety. Learn why treatment resistance happens, how accommodation can maintain anxiety, and how SPACE treatment can help parents support change.

Supporting someone with OCD can be challenging. Learn how reassurance, accommodation, and participation in compulsions can affect OCD, and how to provide support without reinforcing the disorder.

For many people, repeated reassurance can unintentionally teach the brain:

• uncertainty is dangerous

• anxiety must be resolved immediately

• reassurance is necessary to feel safe

• confidence should come from other people rather than from one’s own ability to tolerate uncertainty