Josh Hillebrand LCSW

Let’s say you’re stuck on a difficult thought like “I’m a terrible person,” “Nobody likes me,” or “I’m going to sound like an idiot during my presentation tomorrow.” Traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) might have you look at the evidence for and against these thoughts, and then identify a more adaptive thought. This can be a helpful approach for some people. But, if that doesn’t work for you, try out one of my favorite concepts and skills from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): cognitive defusion.

Cognitive defusion says we don’t need to spend time challenging thoughts. After all, sometimes this can just get us caught up in a back-and-forth with our own mind and result in more and more spiraling and rumination. The idea behind cognitive defusion is that we can use mindfulness to remind ourselves that our thoughts are basically just strings of words in our heads. Further, the skill can help us take a step back from the thoughts, noticing them with curiosity, and this can give us the space we need from these troublesome words. Once we have that space, we can choose something more productive to do with our time, which might look like enjoying another episode of The Pitt or Alien: Earth.

Here are some ways to practice cognitive defusion (some of these are more on the silly side but can be effective but use your own intuition for which ones to try out):

• Repeat the thought out loud as fast as you possibly can for 60 seconds
• Say the thought as slowly as possible (pretend to be the sloth character from Zootopia)
• Sing the thought to the tune of your favorite song or the Happy Birthday song
• If the thought is “I’m a bad person,” try saying “I’m having the thought that I’m a bad person” and notice if that shifts anything for you. Next, try saying “I’m noticing that I’m having the thought that I’m a bad person” and see if that shifts anything further. You could also try writing the thought out and follow the same pattern.

Remember the goal is not necessarily to banish the thought from your consciousness forever. Rather, it’s to help you take a step back when you’re hooked on a thought so you can have more psychological flexibility in a sticky moment. If you have more of this type of flexibility, you could spend more of your time doing the things you actually care about rather than letting that thought distract you for the rest of the day.