Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts

by Sally M. Winston PsyD

Techniques for ridding yourself, bypassing, or avoiding unwanted intrusive thoughts are attempts at control. The problem is that attempts to control are prime examples of paradoxical effort and are guaranteed to increase entanglement. Trying to control the thoughts is entirely the wrong attitude. It ignores the fact that the thoughts are meaningless and harmless, and don’t require controlling. The attempt to control them reinforces the wrong message. It is an example of paradoxical effort: it works backward. It suggests urgency, importance, and danger, when none exists.

It does take lots of courage to just let it happen and not react to the false alarms: you have to just let the thought be there and trust that it is okay to do that—even while you cannot be 100 percent absolutely certain.

Well-intentioned people frequently suggest that such coping techniques are goals, and if you practice them diligently, you can learn to manage your anxiety. You will then have these tools at your fingertips and be able to use them successfully whenever the need arises. Unfortunately, they are all attempts to control your thoughts that end up backfiring.

The problem is that they stop working even though they may seem helpful at first, as you no doubt have already discovered. There is a very good reason why they stop working, and it is not your fault. These techniques convey the wrong attitude and send the wrong message. Coping is not the goal here. Coping does not provide lasting recovery because it fails to address an essential change of attitude. Our goal is much more enduring and profound than mere coping. We want you to reach the point where you do not care whether the thoughts come or not. We would like you to turn off the alarm system in reaction to these thoughts so your amygdala no longer needs to warn of danger. We want you to change your relationship with the thoughts so they no longer cause distress. This reduces dread and stickiness so ultimately the thoughts will cease to bother you at all.

Techniques can be applied in active or fighting ways that produce desperation, frustration, and fear, and make the thoughts stickier, increase entanglement, and become prime examples of paradoxical effort. Or they can be applied in passive ways, which reinforce the fact that the thoughts do not constitute a danger, do not need to be fought, have no special significance, and will go away on their own once they are left alone. The best perspective is one that is not at all obvious. Instead of battling with the problem, you can try to willingly and intentionally go toward uncertainty and distress. When you do not recoil from your own thoughts, they lose their power. When you face the dragon, he turns out to be made of fluff.

There are six essential steps for coping with each unwanted intrusive thought. If you practice them regularly, you will be breaking bad habits and training your brain to be less susceptible to future intrusive thoughts. You can remember the six steps by committing the acronym RJAFTP to memory: R: recognize J: just thoughts A: accept and allow F: float and feel T: let time pass P: proceed. You can make up a sentence to help you remember the steps (for example, Robert just ate fries, tacos, and pie).

Remember that whenever you experience the effects of anxious thinking, having even a 99 percent probability of certainty still isn’t enough. There is no risk that feels reasonable. You are looking for total and complete certainty. This fight for certainty fuels your Worried Voice and makes it harder for you to label your thought as an intrusive one. You focus on the content of your thought, rather than the result of a false alarm triggered by an eager amygdala. So the action of labeling helps you to practice the art of allowing reasonable uncertainty in your life. We will talk more about this important element when we discuss ways to practice in chapter 8. Helpful Fact: Certainty is a feeling and not a fact.

Here is one way to understand what it means to accept, not push away, and also not engage with each intrusive thought: The voice of False Comfort always spurs on Worried Voice. Not engaging with each unwanted intrusive thought involves silencing False Comfort. That robs Worried Voice of the fuel it needs to keep spouting fears. Silencing False Comfort is one way of refusing to engage with your intrusive thought. Remember that you can expect to feel the initial alarm. This is your amygdala doing its job. But right after that whoosh of distress arrives, your job is to keep False Comfort in check. Each of the following are habits of False Comfort, whom you are trying to silence. Stay away from them. When you notice False Comfort stepping forward, gently withdraw your attention and participation. False Comfort wants you to