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

Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts. I think this is a valuable resource for clinicians and OCD suffers. I’m a strong believer that individuals who experience difficulties with OCD need to be given multiple resources from various sources throughout their treatment to help them better understand intrusive thoughts. I believe that this book helps provide valuable insight on such topics as how everyone experiences intrusive thoughts, how sometimes using self-talk incorrectly can lead to compulsions, the importance of observing thoughts and letting them go, and how energy spent thinking of a thought may make them ‘sticky,’ and more difficult to let go.The triggers for intrusive thoughts are varied and often unique to the person. The usual culprits are stress, anxiety, or external triggers like that person who cut you up in traffic that morning. Some mental health conditions, such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety disorders, can also trigger intrusive thoughts.But before you start worrying, let's clarify: intrusive thoughts are common. In fact, nearly everyone experiences them at some point in their lives. They're part of the weird and wonderful tapestry of human thinking. It's when these thoughts occur on a regular basis, become too loud, too disturbing, and or start affecting our daily life that they become a concern. But there is a way to manage them.Ever noticed how it's easier to deal with something when you're fully present? That's mindfulness. It involves focusing on your breath, the sensations in your body, or the sounds around you to cultivate an awareness of the present moment. This awareness allows you to observe your thoughts, including the intrusive ones, without reacting or getting swept away. These thoughts don't define you.Label thoughts: Observe intrusive thoughts without judgment and label them as "just thoughts."Try a guided technique: A simple breathing meditation can help you to stay grounded.Instead of reacting emotionally to an intrusive thought, simply acknowledge it for what it is: a thought, not a fact. This creates distance between you and the thought, reducing its intensity.By labeling it, “This is just an intrusive thought, not reality” you weaken its power and prevent it from spiraling into distress.Use a neutral phrase: Say to yourself, “Oh, there’s that thought again,” instead of engaging with it emotionally. This helps reduce its significance.Imagine the thought as background noise: Think of intrusive thoughts like a radio playing in another room—you don’t have to listen or react to every single sound.The more you resist, the stronger it tends to become. By allowing the thought to exist without reacting emotionally, you take away its power. Over time, this "allowing" approach helps the thought lose its grip, making it fade naturally.Use the "observer" mindset: Imagine yourself as a curious scientist or a neutral observer, simply noticing the thought without engaging with it.Remind yourself that thoughts are not facts: Just because you have a thought doesn’t mean it’s true, important, or requires action. Let it come and go like a passing cloud.

What a great book. It was easy to read, entertaining and practical. I have studied anxiety and thought I knew all the best approaches to manage unwanted, intrusive thoughts. But this book argues that past approaches of distraction, positive thinking, and reframing actually serve to perpetuate the dialogue between the part of the mind that worries, and the part of the mind that tries to comfort and offer assurances. The conflict between these two parts is inevitable because the things we tend to worry about the most tend to carry some degree of risk. Even though the thing we worry about is though against the odds of happening, it is always possible, even if only at a 1% chance. So the mind will continuously look for ways to find certainty, and this only perpetuates the distress, rumination, and anxiety. As such the book advocates an attitude and approach of acceptance, which through practice will diffuse the dialogue between the worried mind and the false comforting mind, and the pattern of intense repetitive intrusive, thinking subsides.

I’ve dealt with intrusive thoughts since I was a young teen (of course, at the time I didn’t know there was a name for them- I just thought I was insane.) They have varied in theme. A few weeks ago, I was triggered by something in the media that popped a thought into my head that threw me off very badly. It caused panic attacks that kept me up at night. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t function at all. My husband would get home and I would just sob because I couldn’t cope. I was stuck in the OCD trap of mental rumination of asking and answering question after question with reassurance that only made the thought grow stronger and come up with “even worse” what ifs. I could recognize that it was an intrusive thought, but I had zero idea of what to do about it. Recognizing that it is intrusive is just, unfortunately, not enough. I was so desperate and hopeless and I was starting to think I wouldn’t have a happy future because of this thought- or a future at all. I truly felt like I was in the trenches of hell.I discovered this book after doing some research. I read the negative reviews and almost didn’t purchase it. I decided to anyway, and I am incredibly happy I did. The negative reviews aren’t giving this book the credit it deserves. This book is much more than just “ignoring the thought”. In fact, you’ll learn that actively trying to ignore it is actually fueling it.This book starts by teaching you about the normalcy of intrusive thoughts and will take you through some types that people have. It WILL be distressing to some people who don’t experience thoughts of such severity. I personally do, so it was somewhat comforting to see. There are sexual, harmful, etc. There are unfiltered examples of these thoughts which I am very happy about, because for most people, myself included, Intrusive thoughts can be incredibly graphic.The authors then begin to teach you about the *reaction* to the thought creating an anxious hurricane within you, not the thought itself. It WILL be hard to grasp this concept. Stay strong.You will learn about myths about facts that you may believe, and that I believed when I first started reading the book. There is a Q and A about these thoughts that answers common questions such as “why do the thoughts feel like impulses?” And “I get so scared and the fight to control myself feels so real. Why?” This was incredibly eye-opening for me. I think everyone needs to hear what the authors have to say about that phenomenon. Essentially, it is an anxiety-based illusion, but they get more into the science of it that is super important for intrusive-thought-sufferers NEED to hear. This aspect of experiencing intrusive thoughts can be the most challenging for many.Next is a section that I consider to be the most helpful. It goes over the actual process in the brain that creates to and reacts to these thoughts that makes them such a b*#*# to deal with. Once again, incredibly eye opening. I really started to understand why I was having such a hard time with this thought and why I was panicking and running around in a frenzy when it would pop up.They explain why common strategies that we try to use just don’t work. They give the thought too much power. Even trying to tell yourself the thought is false or having a negative reaction to it actually encourages it to stay by telling it that it is significant. There is so much more that goes into it so BUY this book to learn more about this, but as I’ve said so many times, it’s eye-opening. STOP reassuring yourself. Absolutely none. Not even “that’s false” or “I would never do that”. It does not help, even though you think it is the right reaction to such awful thoughts. Trust me on this, I struggled with this at first too. The authors give names to the voices in your head that grapple with the thoughts and really do a wonderful job at showing you how the questions you try to answer after analyzing the thought (worried voice) are never going to be satisfied by your answers or reassurance (false comfort). They make up dialogue between the two about different thought categories and you will begin to see how this creates a chaotic cycle within your mind.Finally, they start telling you what to do. It’s too much to get into, but it DOES take courage and strength. They lay it all out for you. They will tell you what to do. It is very simple, but it takes a lot of work on your part. They also touch on ways you can bring the thought up and practice without waiting for it to pop in. This is what we are all scared of: exposure. But trust me, they will tell you what to do both when the thought is existing on its own and when you are purposefully bringing it in to practice what they are teaching you. Stick with it, trust the authors and trust yourself most of all. It SUCKS. It’s hard. It will seem counterintuitive. It takes tremendous strength and bravery. They will tell you what you will feel and how to handle it. The anxiety will be intense- they will tell you what to do and how to do it.I have hope that with this book you will learn about your entanglement with your thought, what to do about it, and build tools for an encounter with a future thought.I am nowhere “cured” and never will be. That’s not the goal. I am actually still working with the thought that I have been haunted by the last few weeks. It takes practice and courage. I am still working on my recovery and it will be a journey. But for the first time in a month, I feel hopeful. Buy this book. Be brave.Thank you to the authors for this gem.

For someone suffering from “pure OCD,” which mainly consists of obsessions and intrusive thoughts (as I understand this definition) - this book simplifies the causes, effects and solutions to this problem.Simply accepting the thoughts as they are, while making no effort to resist the thoughts, as discussed in this book, can greatly reduce the stress and anxiety associated with the occurrence of those thoughts.I feel better after having read this book!