Quiet Your
OCD Brain
A Game-Changing Metacognitive Workbook to Defeat Obsessions and Compulsions
Available now!
I’m Dr. Reid Wilson, a clinical psychologist who has specialized in the treatment of OCD and anxiety disorders for more than 35 years. Self-help is step one in the treatment process, and it has been the primary focus of my career.
Don’t let OCD take over your daily life. The “6-Moment Game” in this powerful new workbook, Quiet Your OCD Brain, can help you take on invasive symptoms and regain control.
How will this new workbook help me with my OCD?
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can be insidious. Symptoms such as obsessions and compulsions may interfere with your work life, social life, and your romantic relationships. Intrusive thoughts may keep you up at night or keep you distracted during the day. The good news is there are tools you can use to defeat OCD and take charge of your life. This workbook will show you how, step-by-step.
In this innovative workbook, I present a “6-Moment Game” for defeating obsessions and compulsions. Drawn from evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and metacognitive therapy, this powerful yet practical workbook will show you how to rewire your brain to overcome intrusive thoughts and focus instead on what’s meaningful in your life.
Discover how the 6-Moment solution can help you:
- Challenge OCD’s domination over your life
- Turn your back on distressing thoughts
- Quiet obsessions and find peace in the present moment
- Focus on what you want in life—and make it happen!
By continually standing up to your OCD, you’ll literally change the neural pathways in your brain to become stronger and more resilient against intrusive obsessions, urges and rituals. So, pick up this workbook, and set aside 6 simple moments to take back control of your life. You won’t regret it!
What Others Are Saying About Quiet Your OCD Brain
“When you read a book with a villain in it, you wonder who they are and how they do what they do. In this book, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is that villain! You’ll learn what OCD is, how it works, and the tricks it plays. When you learn the 6-Moment Game, you gain access to a life where you are no longer a victim of the villain, but a warrior-survivor of it!”
—Patrick B. McGrath, PhD, chief clinical officer at NOCD, member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF), and fellow of the Association for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies
“OCD is a parasite that manipulates attention so you inadvertently feed it. That terrible theme of your doubts is just a tricky distraction! Reid Wilson, a truly creative pioneer in the field, coaches you in the strategies that get you back in control. He gives you moment-by-moment steps, based on sound neuroscience, to break the ‘rules’ that OCD has established and change false alarms into irrelevant noise. His verbal prompts for shifting your attitude are gems. He gets it.”
—Sally Winston, PsyD, coauthor of Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts, Needing to Know for Sure, and Overcoming Anticipatory Anxiety
“Quiet Your OCD Brain offers an innovative adaptation of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) that shows significant promise for individuals with OCD. Written in a compassionate, accessible, and engaging style, it provides practical strategies to overcome this condition. Individuals with OCD, their families, and their care providers will find this book enlightening and empowering. It offers genuine hope to those living with this often-debilitating condition.”
—Judith S. Beck, PhD, president of the Beck Institute, clinical professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of CBT: Basics and Beyond
Want to see more? Click here to read more comments (click on “Praise” halfway down the page)
Not sure if this workbook will help you?
Check out these select workbook chapter summaries and Q & A’s here:
Chapter 1: OCD’s Strategy of Domination
OCD dominates through a three‑stage strategy: it selects a threatening theme, generates relentless doubt, and trains those with OCD to respond with avoidance, compulsions, and “just‑to‑be‑sure” behaviors that keep attention locked on the theme. The chapter normalizes the variety of obsessions (thoughts, images, sensations, memories) and themes (contamination, harm, scrupulosity, relationships, “not just right” feelings) while stressing that, underneath, everyone with OCD faces the same process.
Q: You describe OCD as a parasite that ‘lives off your responses’ and say that’s its Achilles’ heel. How does that idea change the way people work with obsessions and compulsions?
Dr. Wilson: Seeing OCD as dependent flips the power dynamic; instead of trying to stop thoughts, people can target reassurance, checking, and avoidance as intentions that feed the disorder. That understanding immediately makes exposures, response prevention, and misbehavior feel purposeful.
Chapter 2: Creating Our 6-Moment Game
This chapter introduces the 6‑Moment Game, a simple sequence that captures how OCD episodes unfold and how treatment intervenes. Moments 1–3 (sensory awareness, obsession, fear response) are automatic, unconscious processes driven by the amygdala and previous learning, and are explicitly declared “not your job” to control. Moments 4–6 are deliberate therapeutic moves: stepping back as a neutral observer, turning away from the theme by treating it as noise, and turning toward other activities while tolerating lingering uncertainty and arousal. This chapter offers detailed explanations, examples, and practice prompts for each moment, including verbal cues to support stepping back and turning away. It culminates in a clear “end game” vision where obsessions still occur but are experienced as brief “zaps” that no longer dictate behavior or life choices.
Q: You teach readers to literally label their experience—‘There’s my obsession’—as Moment 4. How does that simple naming step actually change the game neurologically and psychologically?
Dr. Wilson: Note that naming moves the person from actor to observer, recruits prefrontal cortex, adds a second voice alongside the panic, and creates a choice point where previously there was only compulsion.
Chapter 3: Create Strong Intentions That Drive You Forward
Intentions are defined as clear, concise commitments about how to respond to OCD and what outcomes to fight for, ranging from long‑term life goals to in‑the‑moment decisions. This chapter explores how ordinary avoidance and a capital‑R “Resistance” (shaped by OCD) derail both everyday tasks and therapeutic efforts, generating anticipatory anxiety and convincing people they are “not ready.” This chapter begins building an “inner coach” voice that can override Resistance by reconnecting each hard action to the desired future identified earlier in the book.
Q: You capitalize ‘Resistance’ and describe it as something OCD has trained into people. How is that different from just saying ‘I’m anxious’ or ‘I’m not motivated’?
Dr. Wilson: Calling it Resistance highlights that the ‘don’t do this, it’s dangerous’ message is part of the disorder’s strategy, not a neutral inner truth. This helps those with OCD and therapists externalize the stall‑out and plan around it instead of accepting it as a valid limit.
Chapter 4: Need to Start Small? Mess with the Pattern.
OCD’s grip is often so strong that jumping straight into full response prevention is too difficult. Chapter 4 offers an alternative: subtly “messing with” OCD’s rigid patterns to destabilize them. This chapter describes how OCD creates highly structured rituals—specific wording, images, numbers, sequences, or objects—that can be disrupted by altering one element at a time. Throughout, this chapter ties these micro‑disruptions back to the two core intentions: to push into OCD’s territory and to willingly create some doubt and distress as the price of change.
Q: You suggest that when people can’t yet stop a ritual, they can start by ‘messing with’ its pattern. Why can even tiny changes in a ritual have such a big impact?
Dr. Wilson: OCD loves rigidity. When you alter timing, sequence, or form, you show the brain that the feared catastrophe doesn’t require perfect adherence, and you open the door for memory reconsolidation and further change.
Chapter 5: When You Practice, You Win
Consistent practice is the decisive factor in winning the game against OCD. Isolated brave moments are helpful, but daily, structured repetitions are what actually rewire the brain. This chapter reframes practice as a series of winnable challenges rather than a perfectionistic test, encouraging readers to aim for frequency and persistence rather than flawless performance. This chapter closes by tying practice back to the book’s promise: Each repetition is a move toward a future in which OCD might still knock, but you don’t have to answer.
Q: How do you help people keep going with practice over weeks and months, especially when OCD is telling them it’s pointless?
Dr. Wilson: Bring it back to outcome pictures, tracking small wins, and the competitive stance: each repetition is a point scored against OCD, and reviewing those points helps override the disorder’s narrative of hopelessness.
Quiet Your OCD Brain
is also available as an audiobook
Meet Your Coach
REID WILSON, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist based in Chapel Hill, NC, is the author of Stopping the Noise in Your Head: The New Way to Overcome Anxiety and Worry, the classic self-help book Don’t Panic: Taking Control of Anxiety Attacks, and the online self-help course OCD & the 6-Moment Game: Strategies & Tactics. He is the co-author with Edna Foa, Ph.D., of Stop Obsessing! How to Overcome Your Obsessions and Compulsions and co-author with Lynn Lyons, LICSW, of Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous & Independent Children, as well as Playing with Anxiety: Casey’s Guide for Teens and Kids.
Dr. Wilson is a Founding Clinical Fellow of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) and Fellow of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT). He designed American Airlines’ first national program for the fearful flier and served as the expert on anxiety for WebMD’s Mental Health Community. He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, CNN, The Katie Show, A&E’s Hoarders, and MTV’s True Life. Dr. Wilson received ADAA’s highest award in 2014 and was honored with the Patricia Perkins Service Award by the International OCD Foundation in 2019.