Almost everyone has them
An intrusive thought is a thought that arrives uninvited and feels out of character: an image of harm, a doubt about something you are sure of, an urge you would never act on. Surveys of ordinary people find that nearly all of us have them. Most of the time they pass unnoticed, like background noise.
The thought itself is not the problem. The problem begins with what happens next.
Why they get stuck for some people
For some people, a thought like this lands with a jolt of meaning. What kind of person thinks that? What if it means something about me? What if I did it? The thought gets flagged as dangerous, and the mind, trying to help, keeps bringing it back to be checked.
That is the trap. The more important a thought feels, the more often it returns. Checking, reassuring yourself, mentally arguing with it: each of these tells the mind that the thought matters, and so it stays.
A thought is not a wish, and it is not a plan.
Why fighting them makes them louder
Try, for a moment, not to think about a white bear. The instruction itself keeps the bear in view. Intrusive thoughts work the same way. Pushing them away takes effort, and effort is attention, and attention is exactly what keeps them alive.
This is why willpower is the wrong tool. People who struggle most with intrusive thoughts are usually not weak-willed. They are often conscientious people who take their thoughts seriously and fight hard. The fighting is the fuel.
What helps instead
The direction that helps is counter-intuitive: letting the thought be there without doing anything about it. Not agreeing with it, not arguing with it, not checking. Noticing it, naming it as a thought, and returning to whatever you were doing. It feels risky at first, because it is the opposite of what the alarm is telling you. Over time the thought loses its charge, because nothing is feeding it.
This is slow, ordinary work, and it is much easier with guidance than alone.
When to talk to someone
If intrusive thoughts are taking up hours of your day, pulling you into rituals or checking, or making you avoid people and places, it is worth talking to someone who works with this. It is one of the better understood difficulties in psychology, and there are approaches with a long track record. You do not need to describe the thoughts in detail to begin. You only need to say that they are there.
Written by
Nimisha Shrivastava
RCI Registered Clinical Psychologist (Reg. No. A114126) with an M.Phil. in Clinical Psychology from ABVIMS Dr. RML Hospital, New Delhi, and a PhD scholar at Christ University, Bengaluru. She works with adults and couples, in person and online.
About Nimisha