Maladaptive Beliefs

How unhelpful beliefs fuel OCD and anxiety, and evidence-based ways to change them.

5 articles

Watercolor illustration of a person at a kitchen table by a window, with a tangle of looping lines above an open notebook loosening into a single calm ribbon
Featured

Moral OCD Without Religion: Why Scientists Built a New Test

You don't have to be religious to be tormented by the fear that you're a bad person. Scrupulosity research has long focused on sin and God, and the main questionnaire works poorly for nonreligious…

Oct 8, 2026 · 9 min read Read the article →

More on Maladaptive Beliefs

Watercolor illustration of a person in a coat turning away from a kitchen stove toward an open doorway, with looping lines around the stove loosening into a single ribbon
12 min read

Checking OCD: Why You Recheck the Stove (and How to Stop)

You checked the stove. You saw it was off. So why do you have to go back? Experiments…

Read More →
Watercolor illustration of a person at an open front door in morning light holding keys, with soft ribbon-like lines drifting from the kitchen behind toward the doorway
11 min read

Inflated Responsibility in OCD: Why It Feels Like Your Fault

Inflated responsibility is the belief that you alone hold the power to cause or prevent harm, and that…

Read More →
Watercolor illustration of a person calmly slicing bread at a kitchen counter in morning light, a child's drawing on the fridge, soft lines dissolving toward the window
9 min read

“Will I Act On It?” The Fear of Acting on Intrusive Thoughts

Every harm thought hides the same question: what if I act on it? Here's why the thought feels…

Read More →
Watercolor illustration of a person sitting on a park bench in morning light watching a leaf drift on a pond, with soft looping lines above their head separating into two strands
11 min read

Thought-Action Fusion: Why Thinking It Feels Like Doing It

Thought-action fusion is the belief that thinking something is morally equal to doing it, or makes it more…

Read More →
Practice · exercises from the ocd.app app

Try an exercise from the app

These are real statements from the ocd.app app. For each one, decide: is it OCD thinking that keeps the cycle going, or a helpful thought to practise?

  • Not knowing is unbearable
  • I want to always be certain
  • Uncertainty is unbearable
  • I must fear uncertainty
  • Feeling uncertain is a natural part of life
  • I can endure not knowing
  • Me and 'unsure' can be friends
  • I can deal with uncertainty

Educational practice, not therapy or a diagnosis. More exercises from the app · Practise daily in the ocd.app app →

Practise what you read, a few minutes a day

The ocd.app app turns these ideas into short daily exercises, built with clinical psychologists and backed by 22 peer-reviewed studies.

Start free →
Practising with the ocd.app app