Pure O: when intrusive thoughts won’t stop
The thought lasts a second. The checking lasts all evening.
A thought flashes up that you’d never choose, a picture or a doubt that horrifies you. It lasts a second. Then the work starts. You go over why it came. You test how you feel about it. You look it up at midnight, or ask someone, or a chatbot, a question you’ve asked before. Relief, for a while. Then the doubt finds a gap. So why won’t the thought stop? Because it keeps getting answered. The thought isn’t what keeps you stuck. The answering is. In “Pure O” the compulsions are mostly in your head, and every round tells your mind the thought was worth answering.
Before anything else. Intrusive thoughts with mental checking that take up a lot of your day can be part of OCD, which a qualified professional can assess. The recommended first talking treatment is CBT with exposure and response prevention (ERP), from a qualified clinician. Our course is self-help for overthinking. It doesn’t treat OCD, and it isn’t a substitute for ERP. And this page won’t tell you what your thought means or whether it’s true. That’s on purpose: any answer would be one more round of reassurance.
The flash and the long chase
Almost everyone gets unwanted thoughts, upsetting ones included. In a study across six continents, 93.6% of students reported at least one in the previous three months. The trigger is quick, and nobody chooses it. What keeps you stuck is the long chase after it.
Say you’re chopping vegetables and a picture flashes up: the knife, and someone you love. One second. Then the chase. Why did I think that? You replay it to check how it felt. You put the knife away, search what it means, and ask your partner, carefully, something you’ve asked before. Relief, for an hour. Then: did they really mean it?
In Pure O, most of the chase is invisible. These are mental compulsions, and they help keep OCD going:
- Analysing: why did I think it, what does it say about me.
- Mental checking: replaying, testing your reaction, watching for the thought to come back.
- Reassurance seeking: asking people, searching online, asking an AI.
- Neutralising: a “good” thought to cancel a bad one.
“In OCD the conceptual component of the CAS manifests as worry, rumination, and analytic thinking in response to thoughts or doubts.” Wells (2009), p. 157
The psychologist Adrian Wells is describing the chase there (the CAS is his name for the whole loop). Each round treats the thought as important, and that’s what keeps it coming back (pp. 158, 164).
Why it keeps going
Beliefs about thinking keep the loop running. Two of them are the ones the course starts with.
- “It helps.” If I work out what this means, I’ll finally be sure. If I check once more, I’ll catch the danger in time. This is why you start.
- “I can’t stop.” Once it starts, I have to see it through. This is why you keep going.
In OCD, Wells also describes beliefs that give a thought special power, such as thought–action fusion: the sense that a thought can make you act on it (p. 160). And there are rules about when a check is finished, like going on until it feels right (p. 163). Working on those safely is a job for a clinician, not a web page. And pushing the thought away doesn’t work either. Even watching out for it can bring it back (p. 164).
What the course does about it
The Open Sky Method is a free, spoken course in eight lessons, with an AI guide. It never asks what your thoughts are about. It works on one skill: noticing a thought and leaving it alone. Not answering it, and not pushing it away. Psychologists call this detached mindfulness (Wells, 2009, p. 175).
- Lesson 1, The trap. The trigger and the chase, the two beliefs, and catching loops by name.
- Lesson 2, The brake. Leaving a thought alone, and putting the chase off until later.
- Lesson 3, Watching the sky. Lying back on the hillside and watching thoughts drift over like clouds, without steering them.
- Lesson 4, Fixes that feed it. Why checking and reassurance keep the alarm on, and dropping one.
- Lesson 7, Attention is yours. Attention training, and dropping the quietest check of all: has the thought gone yet?
What you’ll actually do: notice the thought, say “that’s a loop”, leave the question unanswered, and go back to what you were doing. Plus, most days, a few minutes of attention training with everyday sounds: for the first four weeks after Lesson 2, twice a day (one full 12-minute round and one short 5-minute round), then once a day. No willpower, nothing to fight.
Two honest notes. Dropping a compulsion can feel rough. In one study of people with OCD, reassurance brought short-term relief, then the discomfort and the urge to ask came back, and the authors warn that simply telling people it makes things worse can do harm (Salkovskis & Kobori, 2015). So if you’re dealing with OCD, decide what to drop, and how fast, with a clinician. And the guide is an AI, set up to work on how you respond, not on what a thought means. If you want to ask it, or any chatbot, whether a thought is true, that’s the loop. Leave the question where it is.
Try a short sample
A taste of the course for intrusive thoughts: a few minutes of the guide explaining the loop, then a short guided practice. Headphones help.
What it isn’t, and when to get help
This is self-help education, not therapy. The guide can get things wrong, and it can’t tell you whether what you’re living with is OCD.
- Intrusive thoughts and checking that take an hour or more a day, or get in the way of work, sleep or relationships: see a GP or doctor, or a psychologist, and ask about OCD. The recommended first talking treatment is CBT with ERP, from a qualified clinician (NICE guidance), and it has strong trial evidence behind it (Öst et al., 2015). A doctor may also talk to you about medication. This course is no substitute for either.
- Anxiety most days: a GP, doctor or psychologist can talk you through CBT and other options.
- Low mood most days for two weeks or more: see your GP or doctor.
- Already in treatment? Check with your clinician first, and let their plan lead.
This isn’t a crisis service. If you’re thinking about ending your life or you’re not safe, call or text 988 in the US and Canada, call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland, or find a free line at findahelpline.com. In immediate danger, call your local emergency number. More lines are on the help page.
Lesson 1 walks you through the loop out loud: the trigger and the chase, the two beliefs, why fighting a thought keeps it close, and your first practice.
Try Lesson 1 freeA spoken, 40-minute lesson with a guide who asks you questions as you go. No account needed. How the 8 weeks work.
Common questions
What is Pure O?
People use “Pure O” for OCD where the compulsions are mostly mental: analysing, reviewing, checking in your head, seeking reassurance. It isn’t a separate diagnosis, and it’s rarely pure. The compulsions are there, just hard to see.
Are mental checking and reassurance seeking compulsions?
When they’re done again and again to settle a doubt, usually yes, and that includes asking an AI. Talking about your life with people you trust is different. Asking the same question again, hoping this answer will stick, is the compulsion.
Why won’t my intrusive thoughts stop?
They tend to hang around when they’re answered: analysed, checked, argued with or pushed away. Each response treats the thought as important, so it comes back. Trying to make it stop is part of the loop too.
Can this course replace ERP?
No. If you’re dealing with OCD, the recommended first talking treatment is CBT with ERP, from a qualified clinician. The course teaches self-help skills for overthinking. If you’re in treatment, ask your clinician whether they fit your plan.
If it feels more like this
- Overthinking everything
- Anxiety and constant worry
- Rumination: going over and over the past
- Replaying the past: shame and old memories
- Negative thoughts
Guides
- How to stop overthinking (without fighting your thoughts)
- Rumination vs worry
- Worry postponement: how the worry window works
- Overthinking at night
Sources
- Wells, A. (2009). Metacognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression. New York: Guilford Press. Chapter 8, Obsessive–compulsive disorder; cited from pp. 157, 158, 160, 163, 164 and 175. https://www.guilford.com/books/Metacognitive-Therapy-for-Anxiety-and-Depression/Adrian-Wells/9781609184964
- Radomsky, A. S. et al. (2014). Part 1—You can run but you can’t hide: Intrusive thoughts on six continents. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 3(3), 269–279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2013.09.002
- Salkovskis, P. M. & Kobori, O. (2015). Reassuringly calm? Self-reported patterns of responses to reassurance seeking in obsessive compulsive disorder. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 49(B), 203–208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2015.09.002
- Öst, L.-G., Havnen, A., Hansen, B. & Kvale, G. (2015). Cognitive behavioral treatments of obsessive–compulsive disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies published 1993–2014. Clinical Psychology Review, 40, 156–169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2015.06.003