What You Need To Know About Intrusive Thoughts
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Today we are talking about intrusive thoughts - what they are, who has them and how we can cope with them in a helpful and healthy way. Let’s get to it.
What Are Intrusive Thoughts?
Intrusive thoughts are basically unwanted thoughts, images or memories that come out of nowhere and cause us some type of distress. Sometimes they spike anxiety, sometimes they lead to feeling shame or guilt. Intrusive thoughts often lead to this distress because their nature kind goes against our core self. Meaning that they likely make us question ourselves and why we had the thought. There are a variety of themes that can pop up when we deal with intrusive thoughts. They can be violent or sexual in nature. They can be about religion, germs or about behaviors you would categorize as unacceptable. When we have a thought like this and it causes us distress, oftentimes the distress stems from how we are responding to the thought, rather than the thought itself. This can be by
Trying to push this thought away
Wondering why we had the thought in the first place
Thinking we are a bad person because we had the thought
Fearing we actually want to act on the thought
As you can probably see, these types of responses to intrusive thoughts, can lead to a whole lot of self-doubt.
How Common Are Intrusive Thoughts?
Intrusive thoughts are a lot more common than you might think. Typically they are portrayed only within the context of obsessive compulsive disorder, but there was actually a research study done back in 2014 which found that about 94% of the global population experiences intrusive thoughts to some degree. The difference between whether or not intrusive thoughts play a large role in disrupting our life can really be found in the way we respond to the thoughts themselves.
How To Respond To Intrusive Thoughts?
As odd as that sounds, it’s really not the thoughts that are problematic, it's how we respond to them that leads to our suffering.
Typically, our very human, initial response to intrusive thoughts is to push them away or to challenge them. But research has actually found that challenging these types of thoughts is not super helpful and can actually make the thoughts worse.
So when I am working with a client who experiences intrusive thoughts I will teach them the technique we are going to run through today so they can learn to respond a bit differently to these thoughts. This technique was created by Jeffrey Schwartz, who is a leading expert in the fields of neuroplasticity and OCD. So without further ado, lets run through the steps of this technique.
The Four Steps
Step 1: Relabel
When we have an intrusive thought, and we are aware that we are having an intrusive thought, the first step calls us to relabel it. Which basically just means that we identify it for what it is. This can be as simple as internally saying: “I am having an intrusive thought”
Step 2: Reattribute
Step 2 calls us to reattribute the source of the thought, which really just means that we are going to acknowledge this thought is stemming from a biological response in the brain. We can acknowledge that we do not have control over whether or not we have an intrusive thought, however we can make a note that this thought is not based in reality.
Step 3: Refocus
Step 3 is really where we put our reps in. Once we relabel and reattribute, we then choose an activity to engage in in order to refocus our attention on something other than the thought. This step is where we practice a lot of mindfulness and patience towards ourselves. A good rule of thumb is to choose a hobby of some kind (reading, exercise, playing an instrument). Or if you are at work or school, maybe you squeeze a stress ball or play with a fidget cube and check in with each of your senses. Something that we can focus on and ultimately trying to refocus on this chosen activity for an increasing amount of time, until the brain can switch gears. We can start by trying to refocus for a minute and can work our way up to 15 minutes.
Step 4: Revalue
Through practicing the first 3 steps, we eventually come to place less value or truth onto the intrusive thoughts. Which means that in time, it will become easier to shift our attention away from the intrusive thoughts and ultimately respond to them in a way that is much more helpful to us in the long run.
If you are interested in learning more about this technique, or about OCD in general, I would highly recommend you read Brain Lock, written by Jeffrey Schwartz. If reading is not your thing, here are a few of his YouTube videos which explain these steps more in depth.
4 Steps To Changing Your Brain For Good
