How to manage intrusive thoughts
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): you’ll work with a therapist to learn ways of thinking that can help you become less sensitive to intrusive thoughts. In a controlled setting, your therapist may also expose you to triggers for your intrusive thoughts so you can learn to react to them differently.
- Medication. Sometimes, medications are used to treat conditions like OCD and PTSD.
- Self-care. A good step toward treating intrusive thoughts is recognizing what they are: just thoughts. You can learn to label them when they happen and recognize that thoughts are not the same as intent or behavior.
42
936 reads
CURATED FROM
IDEAS CURATED BY
Intrusive thoughts are unexpected images or thoughts that seem to pop into your head.
“
The idea is part of this collection:
Learn more about psychology with this collection
How to overcome unwanted thoughts
How to manage intrusive thoughts
How to change your attitude towards intrusive thoughts
Related collections
Similar ideas to How to manage intrusive thoughts
CBT Unveils Our Core Beliefs
For people to get better, they need to understand themselves well. They need to know why they are feeling a particular emotion or carrying out a certain behaviour.
CBT therapy allows individuals to discover core beliefs that influence them in the present.
Exploring the way our brains...
How Can I Challenge My Envious Thoughts?
Just because you have negative thoughts doesn’t mean you have to believe them. The advantage of cognitive therapy is coming up with more helpful, more adaptive, and more realistic ways of thinking. Look at the table above and see if any of the negative automatic thoughts are familiar...
Practical Steps To Handle Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts
- Acknowledge and label these thoughts as bad or negative, creating a distance between you and the thoughts.
- Write them down, to have it in front of you on a piece of paper, as you reflect on it and stop the worrying in the process.
- Recognize that the thoughts are real and a...
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Personalized microlearning
—
100+ Learning Journeys
—
Access to 200,000+ ideas
—
Access to the mobile app
—
Unlimited idea saving
—
—
Unlimited history
—
—
Unlimited listening to ideas
—
—
Downloading & offline access
—
—
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates