“My adult daughter has become extremely afraid of germs in the last few years?”

I imagine when your daughter and the things around her are sprayed with the diluted rubbing alcohol it calms her in those moments because in her mind, it takes care of the contamination from germs. The problem with the spray is that she equates the spraying with what keeps her safe and she never has the opportunity to learn that in fact she is safe because she is safe. The spraying has become her “safety behavior” and in order to help her get well she would need professional help. An experienced cognitive behavioral therapist can treat her using exposure response prevention techniques which ultimately will teach her that she has the ability to tolerate the discomfort of the obsessive thoughts and she is capable of resisting the compulsive spraying. She will learn to challenge her thoughts and once she begins to have experiences of success she will learn that she is not in danger and her anxiety will decrease.

I would recommend some psychotherapy that is based in exposure treatments.

Hello - not clear what kind of ‘other problems’ you are referring to. Are these all problems for her, or only for you? Does she considered them problems? If she doesn’t, and is an adult, you are out of her loop. If she wants help, you can volunteer to assist in finding it, starting perhaps with her primary care physician. Perhaps, in the age of COVID, she feels it is reasonable to take such precautions, extreme though they are, and that it is you who are erring by not doing so. At any rate, although you mean well, legally you can’t act for her unless her life is in danger.


Peace,
Marian Shapiro
Licensed Psychologist

Check this link out for a good resource and insight into your question:
https://www.healthline.com/health/germaphobia#ocd