How this site was built

From one synthesis of the trial literature, applied consistently.

The organising claim is transdiagnostic: obsessing over small things, fixating, catastrophising and worrying about money and the world are not separate problems but one process — repetitive negative thinking — sustained by two engines. One is intolerance of uncertainty (Dugas and colleagues). The other is beliefs about worry itself (Wells). Target the process and you do not have to win an argument with every individual worry.

The phase structure follows from that. Stabilise the body first, because exercise and sleep have their own effect sizes and make everything else land. Then work the process on whichever track fits you. Then layer targeted skills. Then turn to the worries that will never resolve — money, work, the world — where the evidence stops favouring thought-challenging and starts favouring acceptance plus values-based action. Then consolidate with mindfulness, which has the best relapse-prevention evidence.

Why the routing matters so much

In head-to-head trials, metacognitive therapy outperformed CBT for GAD: 65% versus 38% recovery at post-treatment, and at nine-year follow-up 57% versus 38%, with GAD re-diagnosis at 9.5% versus 23.1%. That is a striking result. It is also drawn from a relatively small evidence base heavily influenced by Wells’ own research group, which is why this site treats it as promising rather than settled — and why switching tracks after eight unproductive weeks is built into the plan rather than left to you to work out.

Why nothing leaves your device

This is mental-health data. The safest architecture is the one where there is nothing to breach: no account, no server, no analytics, no network requests after load. Everything lives in your browser’s local storage. The trade-off is real — no sync, and clearing browser data loses it all — so export exists.

Corrections

If something here misstates a finding, that is a bug and worth reporting. Effect sizes are group averages, not promises about you — which is exactly why the programme is built to measure and adjust rather than to be followed on faith.