You may be familiar with some of the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Oftentimes, OCD is associated with very obvious and visible compulsions—like excessive hand washing, ritualistic double checking of things like locking the door, and other physical behaviors.
But you might be surprised to learn that many people with OCD don’t exhibit any physical or visible symptoms. In other words, you can’t see that a compulsion is happening, even though it is. It’s just that the obsessions and compulsions take place in someone’s mind. This is called Pure Obsessional OCD (or “Pure O”, as it’s sometimes referred to). Read on to learn more about it, and how to get help.
What is Pure OCD?
Pure obsessional obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a subtype of OCD that’s characterized by intrusive thoughts, images or urges without any visible physical compulsions. “Pure O” OCD differs slightly from other types of OCD because its compulsions primarily take place in a person’s head rather than through visible actions. This could manifest as mentally replaying events over and over again in your mind, silently repeating phrases in your head, becoming hyper-aware of normal bodily sensations — just to name a few.
Though they can take many forms, these intrusive thoughts generally center on themes of harm, relationships, sexuality and gender, and religious or moral questions. These ideas and images can feel like an attack on a person’s sense of self and they often come with guilt and shame.
Many people with pure OCD are terrified of sharing these experiences for fear of being judged. It’s common for people with “Pure O” OCD to feel like they are the only ones dealing with this. Because their experience is internal, there often aren’t obvious visual clues an outside observer might notice to identify someone with pure OCD, but that makes it no less distressing.
What does Pure OCD feel like?
Although it might sound surprising, it is relatively common to have a disturbing or immoral thought, impulse or urge — regardless of OCD diagnosis. The difference is, for people without OCD, these thoughts tend to last only a few seconds and don’t cause significant distress. A person may be driving and suddenly think to themselves, “What would happen if I drove off this bridge?” But they’ll shortly dismiss the idea and move on.
For someone with pure OCD, these intrusive thoughts can be frequent and highly distressing. They will identify with this thought and feel convinced it reveals something about who they are as a human being. They might think, “I just had a thought of harming someone — that means I must be a violent person.”
For someone with pure OCD, it can feel impossible to disassociate from these thoughts. The experience can feel so real, they can’t imagine their thoughts are actually from OCD. Someone with pure OCD may want to prove or disprove one of their intrusive thoughts (for example: “I would never drive off a bridge, but how can I know for sure?”), feeling unable to tolerate any uncertainty about them. A person with pure OCD may even doubt their diagnosis. They might think, “Maybe this time, my thoughts actually mean I want to hurt someone.”
Examples of pure OCD obsessions
People with pure OCD experience unwanted obsessive thoughts, impulses and urges. Here are just a couple examples of common themes:
- Jennie is sharpening her pencil in a classroom when she suddenly has the thought, “This pencil is really sharp,” followed by an intrusive image of herself hurting a classmate with the pencil. She may start thinking, “I could actually hurt someone. I shouldn’t be in this class. I need to leave right now or I could endanger the other classmates.”
- Taylor is watching a movie with his partner and thinks, “That’s weird. Why didn’t he laugh at that part? Does he not find it funny?” He might start thinking, “What if we’re not meant to be together? I’ve always found a shared sense of humor really important. Now that I think about it, we have nothing in common.”
Examples of pure OCD compulsions
People with pure OCD engage in mental compulsions (rather than physical ones) in an attempt to alleviate their anxiety. Here are some examples of what that might look like:
- Mental review: Someone with pure OCD may engage in excessive mental review as a way to relieve their anxiety. To continue our earlier example: even though fellow students may see Jennie busily absorbing the lecture material, in her head, she’s reviewing every past interaction with students she can remember. After class is over and Jennie is at home, she might mentally review her day at school, searching for proof that she did not stab anyone and is not a murderer.
- Mental rituals: Someone with pure OCD may create certain mental rituals they must accomplish in order to reassure themselves their intrusive thoughts are untrue, or that they aren’t a bad person. For example, after our earlier scenario, Taylor might decide to repeat specific words, images or numbers each time he has a negative thought. He might decide to repeat to himself, “I love my partner,” five times to neutralize a negative thought or think of a photograph where they are at the beach having a great time.
What’s the Best Treatment for Pure OCD or Pure Obsessional OCD?
Even though pure OCD compulsions are often not noticeable from an outside perspective, they are best treated like all types of OCD compulsions — with exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy. ERP is considered the gold standard for OCD treatment; 80% of people with OCD experience positive results from therapy.
For pure OCD, a trained ERP therapist will be able to help you identify your mental compulsions and work with you to come up with the best course of treatment for exposure to them.
Effective, specialized OCD therapy is here
Learn moreIf you’ve ever tried not thinking about something, you know how difficult it is to control your thoughts. ERP therapy takes the opposite approach: Instead of trying to make yourself stop your obsessive thoughts, you welcome them.
Let’s say that each time you’re driving, you can’t stop seeing mental images of your car running over a pedestrian. This scene starts appearing in your mind every time you drive past a school or busy street downtown. As a way of coping, you’ve started counting to seven in your head each time you see an image like this. This strategy worked at first, but lately it has been less effective. So, as a way to take extra precaution, you’ve decided to count to 49 instead of seven.
An ERP therapist may ask you to welcome the intrusive image of running over a pedestrian without trying to make it go away. You might think, “Welcome it? No way! That’s terrible. I just want these images to stop.” But instead of trying to suppress them, a therapist may ask you to put your full attention on these thoughts. This teaches your brain a new response to your intrusive thoughts and shows you that they don’t have to keep you from living your life. Eventually, you will begin to distinguish yourself from your OCD thoughts, and it will become easier to let them come and go without engaging in compulsions or avoidance.
How to get help for Pure O OCD
If you’re struggling with pure OCD, there is help available. To learn more about pure OCD and how it’s treated with ERP, you can schedule a free call with the NOCD Care team and find out how this type of treatment can help you.
Effective, specialized OCD therapy is here
Learn moreAll of our therapists specialize in OCD and receive ERP-specific training and ongoing guidance from our clinical leadership team. Many of them have dealt with OCD themselves and understand how crucial ERP therapy is. NOCD offers live face-to-face video therapy sessions with OCD therapists, in addition to ongoing support in the NOCD app, so that you’re fully supported during the course of your treatment.
