Although I personally did not have an organized approach to treating my OCD, I believe it's important. With that said, when you practice resisting compulsions, and eliminating your obsessive behavior, there should be some way to track this progress so you know when you're improving, and when to move onto other obsessions (in your fear hierarchy). Looking at yourself and realizing that you've been feeling better is a nice thing, and telling yourself that you're improving because of this is probably a valid assumption. It's just that when doing ERP there needs to be a more accurate way to track progress, and I'm not sure how specialists do it exactly.

The only reason I pointed this out is because lately we've been getting posts where people will talk about how they've had a good day, and therefore they must be improving. I just want to make sure that people know this doesn't necessarily indicate improvement. I don't want people to get into situations where they get surprised at how strong their OCD still is, and get disappointed. I don't want them to think that their bad days means they aren't improving, and get discouraged. I hate to be negative on positive posts, but it's not to dampen anyone's mood, it's to help out for the long term. So that when the OCD comes back strong, you don't think you've lost progress, or that your hard work was for nothing.

If you've been working hard at treatment, and you're seeing improvements in your life, then that's excellent!