Why Trying Not to Think About Something Gets Us Into Trouble
There is a classic scene from the 1984 comedy Ghostbusters where the titular Ghostbusters are asked by an evil spirit to "choose the form of their destructor" through their thoughts. In response, Peter Venkman (played by Bill Murray) directs the crew to "clear their minds" and not think of anything. Unfortunately, Ray cannot follow this directive to both hilarious and damaging results (see below, but be warned that there are spoilers for a 41-year-old movie and one piece of not-safe-for-work dialogue).
While Ray's (cognitive) action gets painted as a grave mistake, and as if Ray himself is a fool for making it, there's good reason to feel for Ray in this instance - and a good lesson to learn about trying not to think about something.
For people with anxiety, mood disorders, trauma, and all manner of other challenges, much of the distress ends up arising in response to upsetting thoughts. If we were able to drop a microphone into our minds in these moments, we might hear things like, "I'm a loser," "What if I get fired from my job?" or "I'm not safe driving my car." The content of these thoughts naturally brings strong emotional reactions that people find upsetting and distressing, which leads to a simple yet flawed response: try not to think these things - just "empty [your] mind," as Peter commands.
If you've ever tried not to think about something - good or bad - odds are that you already know that this ranges between really difficult and downright impossible. Part of this is because intrusive thoughts (unwanted and unprompted distressing thoughts) are a natural part of a functioning human mind. Anyone who has ever been sitting in traffic and randomly felt crushing embarrassment about something they did fifteen years ago can attest to this phenomenon. As Ray states in the clip, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man just "popped into [his] head." So even if we try to tell ourselves, "don't think about your performance review at the end of the quarter," odds are it's still going to pop in there from time to time.
Another part of the difficulty pushing things out of our minds arises because the moment we ask our minds not to think about something, it begins conspiring against us. It turns out that if we want to "not think about something," part of our mind needs to be devoted to checking on itself and seeing if we're accomplishing that command; if you say to yourself, "don't think about ice water," part of your mind immediately starts asking itself, "Is it working? Are you not thinking about ice water? Remember don't think about ice water - you should be thinking about anything other than ice water. Just don't think about ice water." That's a lot of thinking about ice water for not thinking about ice water! And it's only a matter of time before the thinking pattern shifts from checking to focused attention.
Distraction, when done with the expressed purpose of pushing something out of our mind, often functions similarly. Even if the content or task we're using to distract ourselves successfully shifts our focus off our thoughts, it usually doesn't work particularly well, as the same checking process will bring it back into consciousness. Moreover, because of this divided attention, we're generally not as effective at completing the task or enjoying the activity we're using as a distraction.
There are also second-order emotional and behavioral effects that make this type of "coping" strategy worse than just ineffective. When we intentionally try to push a thought from our minds, only for that thought to recur or even intensify, the anxiety or distress associated with these thoughts can also magnify. This magnification can come from cognitive errors in interpretation ("if I keep thinking it this often then it must be a real problem,") or as a byproduct of frustration ("WHY CAN'T I STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS THING!!!"). The inescapability and escalating emotional distress associated with these approaches is what often will cause folks to turn to more drastic and numbing approaches, like turning to substances and alcohol to break the cycle.
In sum and short, trying to push thoughts out of your head is, at best, going to be ineffective, and at worst, can lead to an increase in frequency and intensity.
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So, what are we to do? Generally speaking, coping effectively with upsetting thoughts falls into two categories:
1) Disputation and modification. While it's not always immediately apparent, many of our thoughts are either not based in reality, or are at least distorted in such a way as to make them more upsetting than perhaps they need to be. Second-wave cognitive-behavioral therapy provides people with the tools to identify and change thoughts ripe for modification. Maybe the intrusive thought that keeps coming to mind is that you are destined to be alone forever following a difficult break-up. Being able to identify that thought as potentially distorted ("Am I really guaranteed to be alone forever?") and could be modified into something more realistic ("I'm really hurting right now and maybe it feels like I'm not going to recover, but I know eventually I'll find someone new").
2) Acceptance and patience. Some thoughts are not conducive to disputation and modification - anxious thoughts, in particular, are hard to tackle in this manner because we can't offer the burden of proof that our mind seems to desire or because perhaps the anxiousness is about something inevitable (e.g., death). In these instances, a more useful response is not to fight the thought but rather to allow it to arrive and depart - as all thoughts do - as part of our stream of consciousness. While tricky, accepting a thought's presence and the feeling accompanying it can go a long way to letting it drift away faster and averting the cycle described above. To be clear, this doesn't mean we are accepting the content of the thought or taking it as fact, but instead accepting that this unpleasant thought has arisen and patiently, confidently waiting for it to pass.
