Intrusive thoughts: what are they and how to eliminate negative ones?

These are the therapeutic resources used by psychologists when dealing with intrusive thoughts.

Intrusive thoughts are those thoughts that involuntarily appear intermittently. There is a great diversity of repetitive and automatic thoughts, and some of them are very unpleasant.There is even the thought of wanting to harm others, such as your own children.

This type of thought generates a lot of discomfort and, in turn, other thoughts of the type "you should not feel this way". In many cases we even blame ourselves for something that is normal, which are involuntary and unconscious thoughts.

The rumination of thoughts is adaptive, it seeks to filter the thoughts that are useful, but, it does not usually achieve it, since, in addition, we anticipate and believe that the next time we are going to think the same thing again, with what the problem worsens.

Why is it that even if we want to eliminate intrusive thoughts they remain?

A vicious circle is usually givenFor example, let's think about the case of a mother who has the intrusive thought of wanting to hurt her child, but, of course, knows that she does not want to do it and is not going to do it. In these cases there is usually a circular pattern that occurs in this order and through these elements: internal stimulus (exhaustion that leads to the intrusive and involuntary thought of throwing it out of the window), external stimulus (the baby's cry), sensations such as palpitations, emotions of anxiety and fear, thought-avoidance reaction.

After this circle comes the anticipation and catastrophism, which, as we have mentioned, increases the risk of the baby's death.which, as we have already mentioned, increase the problem.

How do we deal with them in therapy?

Automatic thoughts are a reflection of our beliefs, but we are not our thoughts. we are not our thoughts.. Therefore, once the evaluation is done and any other pathology is ruled out, we work on the defusion of thought, that is, we distance ourselves from these mental phenomena and connect more and give greater importance to actions, putting the focus on conscious action.

It is essential to perform an adequate functional analysisstudying the external and internal stimuli involved and response (physiological/motor/cognitive) as well as the consequent ones. If there are avoidance behaviors (calling on the phone, not thinking about the problem...) we worsen the problem, since we do not expose ourselves, so that something primordial is the exposure to emotions, reactions and thoughts.

1. Therapeutic resources to deal with intrusive thoughts

Some of the dynamics used in our practice to work on this problem are the following.

2. Psychoeducation

It is essential to explain to patients what is happening to them and why.

3. Behavioral experiments

With them, we try to prove that when we do not want to pay attention to the thoughts, they appear with more force.

4. Cognitive restructuring and discussion

This is one of the great techniques of psychology and on which most of our treatments are based. It consists of providing the person with the necessary tools so that he/she can come to the conclusion that the thoughts the conclusion that the thoughts that are causing him/her discomfort are neither objective nor useful..

5. Relaxation exercises

Sometimes it is necessary to provide the patient with relaxation strategies in order to decrease the activation caused by stressful thoughts..

6. Analysis of the patient's beliefs

Behind the intrusive thoughts are usually the person's intrinsic beliefs. For example, if the intrusive thought is about killing your child, it is common for beliefs such as "a good mother never loses her temper" and excessive demands to be associated with it.

7. Work of associated symptomatology, generally anxiety and guilt.

As we have already mentioned, unpleasant thoughts and mental images that appear involuntarily, generate great discomfort, even to the point of suffering anxiety attacksThis tends to make the problem last longer. The same happens with guilt. Continuing with the same example, the mother who has the image of killing her child and this generates great fear and guilt, feeds back the vicious circle.

8. Defusion of thought

We are not what we think, we are what we do, that is why we work to give more importance to our actions. to give more importance to actions and to disassociate ourselves from thoughts that appear without our will..

9. Controlled exposure to situations and thoughts that are avoided.

Due to the fear that this kind of thoughts usually generate, we avoid those associated situations. For example, if a person has a recurrent idea that he/she may harm him/herself (but it does not correspond to self-harm ideation because he/she would not want to do it and does not feel any desire to do it), he/she may try to avoid picking up knives.

10. Self-dialogue

It is closely related to the person's beliefs; it is what we tell ourselves that can diminish or aggravate the problem.For this reason it is essential that we work on it in therapy.

11. Concentration on the person's values and actions

If the person has thoughts, for example, of hurting someone, but this generates rejection, would not want to do it and does not conceive it as appropriate, we must redirect the person to these values that he/she has so that, in turn, the guilt will diminish..

12. Training in directed attention

It is about to put our attention on other types of situations and external and internal stimuli. situations and external and internal stimuli.

13. Acceptance

There are thoughts that will not disappear completely or that, for a while, will accompany us, therefore, the work of acceptance is key.

Are you interested in professional help?

At Mariva Psychologistsa clinic located in Valencia that also offers online psychology, we are specialists in the work of this type of psychological problems. Although these alterations can generate a lot of suffering, with cognitive-behavioral treatment very positive results are obtained, getting to eliminate the intrusion of unpleasant thoughts or, failing that, they are accepted and the discomfort they cause is eliminated. Here you can see our contact information.