Cognitive Defusion Helps Us Deal With Unwanted Thoughts

Cognitive defusion is a technique that comes from cognitive-behavioral therapy. Its purpose is to reduce those unwanted thoughts that appear in our minds and that we feel direct our lives. These types of thoughts can be termed obsessive or ruminant.

The main characteristic of these thoughts and the difficulty in eliminating them lies in the fact that they revolve in a circle with no way out. Also, while they are spinning, we feed them ourselves. The ingredients they like best are worries and fears.

For these reasons, running away from this kind of thinking is not a solution, just as ignoring them is not. What cognitive defusion proposes is to teach us to relate to this kind of intrusive thinking. How can you do this? Through certain exercises that help us to separate from them and see them in perspective.

How does merging with unwanted thoughts affect us?

Cognitive disfusion tries to stop us from bonding with these unwanted thoughts that limit our daily lives. We cannot concentrate, we sleep poorly, even exercising our minds are full of intrusive thoughts… It is essential that we know how to build this reality. So, before going deeper into cognitive defusion, let’s see how these kinds of thoughts are created.

The way we merge with unwanted thoughts lies in the fact that we believe we are those thoughts. We are not able to see them contemplatively (from the outside) as taught in the mindfulness technique. For this reason, we treat them as something very important that requires our full attention. So much so that no activity can stop us from thinking about them.

It is also common to regard these types of thinking as absolute truths. They are usually not thoughts that we like, so they indirectly become something of a threat. In this way, we become even more attached to them, using inadequate strategies to get rid of them.

All of this also has an emotional impact. Every thought of this kind that we focus on causes very strong emotions in us. It may be that we feel an intense fear, that anxiety is just under the skin… It is natural, as there is a threat that we need to defend against.

Cognitive Disfusion Exercises

To put an end to this unpleasant situation and to know how to act if it happens again, cognitive disfusion proposes some exercises. Putting them into practice whenever we need to will help us to separate ourselves from thoughts. In time, we will do this so automatically that we will no longer cling to any such thoughts.

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

1.“I’m having a thought of…”

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

Now, let’s get into this sentence, “I’m not good enough.” We will feel that way, even images of situations in which we feel this way may even come to our minds. It is also possible that phrases from people who have made us feel this way come to our minds.

Well, once we’ve gotten to the point where we’re aware that we’re not good enough, let’s take the next sentence template and fit this thought into it. It would be like this: “I am having the thought that I am…”. Now we must say it out loud. What thoughts are we having? “I’m having the thought that I’m not good enough.”

Excellent! What happened? Suddenly we completely detached ourselves from this thought. We see it from a certain perspective, however small. This is a big step forward. Repeating this last statement several times will help us to distance our thoughts and move forward with the second exercise.

2.The loss of meaning

We call this exercise that because we believe it sums up its purpose very well. To accomplish it, let’s take a word we like. For example, “green”. Well, let’s repeat the word “green” many times. After repeating it for a while, we will probably find that it has lost its meaning.

We suddenly forget the definition of the word and only see it as a series of sounds coming out of our mouths. We may even visualize it with all its lyrics, but without any meaning. It is possible that we feel as if we are seeing a word in a language we do not know.

Well, once we get to this point with this word, we’ll pick up the words “I’m not good enough”.” Let’s repeat these words until their meaning is diluted in the movements of our mouths and in the vibrations of the sounds we pronounce. The thought, from one moment to another, will be meaningless.

These two exercises are very interesting for getting away from intrusive thoughts. Despite this, it is important to ask ourselves a few questions once we have successfully completed them.

Of course, now we’ll see it more clearly and say a resounding “no”. This will allow us to free ourselves from this thought and let it go. It’s the definitive step towards getting rid of ruminant ideas that we couldn’t separate ourselves from before.

Cognitive disfusion is a very effective technique for dealing with unwanted thoughts. Thoughts that can make us not enjoy life so much, that we are drowning in constant sadness and that everything seems meaningless.

When we see these thoughts for what they are, that is, mere ideas in our mind, and move away from them, everything becomes clearer. Before, it seemed that a dense fog enveloped our head. Now, thanks to cognitive defusion, this fog is gradually dissipating.