Description
Let go of the struggle and obsess less. With this unique guide, you’ll find the tools you need to get unstuck from obsessive thoughts, overcome fears, feel more grounded, and live a life that truly reflects your values.
Pure obsessional obsessive-compulsive disorder, or “Pure O” OCD, is a subtype of OCD that is characterized by intrusive thoughts, images, or urges without any visible compulsive symptoms. Instead, obsessive worry, regret, or uncertainty is accompanied by “hidden” compulsions like reassurance seeking, avoidance, or complex thought rituals. This can lead to decisions based on fears and compulsions rather than grounded in your values. The efforts to stop or change obsessive thoughts only leads to more anxiety and fear. So, how do you break this obsessive cycle?
Grounded in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and written by a renowned ACT and anxiety expert, “Pure O” OCD explains the process of “cognitive fusion” that leads to obsessive thinking, and how efforts to avoid or control our thoughts reinforce the fusion in an unhelpful, positive feedback loop. Using the five skills in the book—labeling, letting go, acceptance, mindfulness, and proceeding with purpose—you’ll learn how to finally break free of the struggle, worrying, and avoidance that keeps you stuck.
With practice, you’ll find that you can change your relationship to anxiety and obsessive thoughts, responding with your own values-based choices, proceeding purposefully toward a life that reflects what matters most to you.
I write as a psychology professor and a sufferer from OCD. I found Chad’s book most illuminating and particularly liked how he included his own ‘obsessional quirks’. This made him feel so approachable and almost one of the club. I would raise two related issues, as follows.
I wonder (‘obsess over’!) whether the title “”Pure O” OCD” is something of a misnomer. By ‘pure’, this suggests that there can be O without any associated C. As far as I can see, this does not exist since in even invisible O, as in cognitive rumination without any visible behavioural C, the brain will generate an invisible cognitive C. Also, as Chad illuminates, even a so-called pure OCD-er will often seek reassurance. Having said this, I cannot find any better title for the phenomenon or the book!
Related to this, Chad does not describe the phenomenon where there is a real unambiguous thing to fear (feel bad about), such as having a diagnosed terminal illness, a troubling life-long deformity, a rumination on death or the existence of evil in the world. Let me draw a contrast:
Jack might agree that it is illogical to obsess over the fact that someone sneezed near his coat but still can’t stop obsessing over it and would prefer not to do so.
Bill is a sex-starved incel who is desperately unhappy. He feels it to be perfectly rational to experience intense negative emotion at his status. However, he wishes to stop the torment of being reminded every few minutes of this. In the street, reading magazines or getting a wedding invitation, Bill is bombarded by images that remind him of his plight. Bill tries to ignore the aversive images but to no avail.
I believe that Edna Foa’s term ‘over-valued ideation’ might describe this but ‘over-valued’ is a subjective term. Here, somewhat in the spirit of Woody Allen, one might argue that it would be abnormal not to have perfectly rational moments of negative emotion linked to one’s obsessional theme. However, one would still not wish to have such fears pop into the conscious mind every few minutes.
In summary, I strongly recommend this book.
I write as a psychology professor and author of an autobiography written as a sufferer from OCD. I found Chad’s book most illuminating and particularly liked how he included his own ‘obsessional quirks’. This made him feel so approachable and almost one of the club. I would raise two related issues, as follows.
I wonder (‘obsess over’!) whether the title “”Pure O” OCD” is something of a misnomer. By ‘pure’, this suggests that there can be O without any associated C. As far as I can see, this does not exist since in even invisible O, as in cognitive rumination without any visible behavioural C, the brain will generate an invisible cognitive C. Also, as Chad illuminates, even a so-called pure OCD-er will often seek reassurance. Having said this, I cannot find any better title for the phenomenon or the book!
Related to this, Chad does not describe the phenomenon where there is a real unambiguous thing to fear (feel bad about), such as having a diagnosed terminal illness, a troubling life-long deformity, a rumination on death or the existence of evil in the world. Let me draw a contrast:
Jack might agree that it is illogical to obsess over the fact that someone sneezed near his coat but still can’t stop obsessing over it and would prefer not to do so.
Bill is a sex-starved incel who is desperately unhappy. He feels it to be perfectly rational to experience intense negative emotion at his status. However, he wishes to stop the torment of being reminded every few minutes of this. In the street, reading magazines or getting a wedding invitation, Bill is bombarded by images that remind him of his plight. Bill tries to ignore the aversive images but to no avail.
I believe that Edna Foa’s term ‘over-valued ideation’ might describe this but ‘over-valued’ is a subjective term. Here, somewhat in the spirit of Woody Allen, one might argue that it would be abnormal not to have perfectly rational moments of negative emotion linked to one’s obsessional theme. However, one would still not wish to have such fears pop into the conscious mind every few minutes.
In summary, I strongly recommend this book.
(Prof.) Frederick Toates, UK
Nice read, nice supplemental resource.
I like that this book was not written for medical professionals, and is very easy to understand. Definitely recommend if you’re looking for some tools to help manage OCD symptoms.
From the first pages in “Pure O” OCD I knew I was reading the right book. And that’s key to those of us with OCD – that moment of resonance; when something’s explained in a way that lands, that feels true to our own personal experience. Ask anyone with OCD: finding something that resonates is the ultimate medicine. We are all seeking it, all the time.
My Pure O OCD ‘type’ is tricky, sticky and icky, and it’s very rarely addressed in any self help or therapeutic literature. But in Chad LeJeune’s book, “Pure O” OCD , it is addressed, in many ways and in every chapter. LeJeune tells the stories of his clients, really breaking down common themes, in a far more detailed way than I’ve ever found in non fiction on OCD.
LeJeune delves deep into cognitive fusion – which felt like a tonic for my hyperactive soul. His examples are atypical, like Pure O examples usually are, and for once I felt like I was getting the full picture of what my brain is going through from obsession to compulsion and all of it in between. It’s the in between that LeJeune has a brilliance for and deep experience with. Everyone’s OCD is so personal and unique, and LeJeune’s translation and understanding is beyond that of most people in this field. He gets into the ‘weirder’ experiences we Pure O’s need to hear about.
I could go on about something in every chapter as there are many dog eared pages and pencil highlights as I’m on my second read, but the chapter I’d like to comment on for
review is Chapter 5 , ‘Song of Myself.’ This chapter goes deeper into the concept of ‘self’ in relation to OCD and it was profoundly enlightening for me. LeJeune’s secret sauce as a leading OCD therapist comes through in every chapter, but in this chapter in particular, it’s brilliant. He explores the conceptual and contextual sense of self. We learn early on to tell ourselves things like “It’s not ME, it’s my OCD” but that barely scrapes the surface of the fruitful comprehension offered by LeJeuene in this chapter and throughout this book.
I’m no new comer to OCD, having been a speaker and advocate at OCD conferences and support groups for many years, and my sincere hope is for everyone with OCD and all OCD therapists will read and use this book and use it as a tool and guide.