Cognitive defusion helps us deal with unwanted thoughts

Cognitive defusion is a technique that comes from cognitive therapy. Its purpose is to reduce those unwanted thoughts that appear in our minds and that we feel are directing our lives. These types of thoughts can be called obsessive or ruminative, among many other meanings.

The main characteristic of these thoughts, and their difficulty in eradicating them, is that they spin in a circle with no way out for them. Furthermore, while they are spinning, we are going to feed them ourselves. The ingredients they like the most are worries and fears.

For these reasons, fleeing from these types of thoughts is not a solution, nor is ignoring them. What cognitive defusion proposes is to teach us to relate to this type of intrusive thoughts.. How can you do that? Through certain exercises that help us separate ourselves from them and see them in perspective.

How do we merge with unwanted thoughts?

Cognitive defusion tries to stop us from merging with those unwanted thoughts that limit us day to day. We cannot concentrate, we sleep poorly, even when exercising our minds are full of intrusive thoughts… This reality, it is essential that we know how it is constructed. Therefore, before discussing cognitive defusion in depth, let’s see how these types of thoughts are created.

The way we merge with unwanted thoughts is that we believe we are those thoughts.. We are not able to see them in a contemplative way (from the outside), as taught in mindfulness. For this reason, we consider these thoughts to be very important and require our full attention. So much so that no activity can make us stop thinking about them.

It is also common to consider to those types of thoughts as absolute truths. Generally, they are not thoughts that we like, so they indirectly become a kind of threat. In this way, we become more hooked on them, using inappropriate strategies to get rid of them.

All of this also has an emotional impact. Every thought of this type that we focus on provokes very strong emotions in us.. We may feel intense fear, anxiety may be on the surface… It is something natural, since there is a threat that we have to defend ourselves against.

Cognitive defusion exercises

To put an end to this unpleasant situation for those who experience it and to know how to act if it happens again, Cognitive defusion proposes some exercises. Putting them into practice whenever we need it will help us to defuse our thoughts. Over time, we will do this so automatically that we will no longer be attached to any such thoughts.

All cognitive defusion exercises have 3 purposes. The first is that we are able to identify and undress thought; the second, that we manage to feel it as much as we can; the third, that we manage to release or free it. Let’s discover some exercises that help achieve this:

1. “I am having the thought of…”

This first cognitive defusion exercise consists of taking that thought that is disturbing us and putting it in the following phrase: “I am/I am not…”. The objective is that we can complete it according to our own experience. For example, we say “I am not valid.” We can write this phrase or say it out loud.

Now, let’s get into that sentence. We are going to feel invalid, we may even have images come to mind of situations in which we feel this way. It is also possible that phrases from people who have made us feel this way appear in our minds.

Well, once we reach this point where we are aware that we are not valid, we are going to take the following model sentence and fit this thought into it. It would be like this: “I am having the thought that I am…”. Now we really should say it out loud. What thought are we having? “I am having the thought that I am not valid.”.

Perfect! What has happened? Suddenly, we have completely disassociated ourselves from that thought. We see it with a certain perspective, even if it is small. This is a great advance. Repeating this last statement several times will help us achieve distance with our thoughts and move forward with the second exercise.

2. The loss of meaning

We have named this exercise this way because we believe it summarizes its objective very well. To do it, we are going to take a word that we like. For example, “green.” Well then We are going to repeat the word “green” many times. When we have been repeating it for a while, we will probably realize that it has lost its meaning.

Suddenly, we forget the definition of the word and we only see it as a series of sounds coming out of our mouth. We may even visualize it with all its letters, but devoid of any meaning. We may feel as if we are seeing a word in a language we do not know.

Well, once we have managed to get to this point with this word, we will take the word “invalid”. We are going to repeat this word until its meaning is diluted in the movements of our mouth and the vibrations of the sounds we pronounce. The thought, from one moment to the next, will cease to make sense.

These two exercises are very interesting to distance ourselves a little from intrusive thoughts. However, it is important that when we successfully complete them we ask ourselves some questions.

Surely now we see it much more clearly and pronounce a resounding “no”. This It will allow us to let go of that thought and let it go. The definitive step to free ourselves from ruminative ideas that we could not get rid of before.

Cognitive defusion is a very effective technique for dealing with unwanted thoughts. Thoughts that can make us not enjoy life as much, that we are immersed in constant sadness and that everything lacks meaning.

When we see thoughts as they are, mere ideas in our mind, and we move away from them, everything becomes clearer. Before it seemed like we had a dense fog surrounding our heads. Now, thanks to cognitive defusion, that fog is gradually dissipating.

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