INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS: CAUSES, TYPES, AND TREATMENT - ARTE - 2025

The intrusive thoughts are unconscious thoughts that disrupt attention, being able to become obsessions difficult to remove. These involuntary ideas or visions are often aggravated by mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, or obsessive compulsive disorder.

People who do not suffer from any type of mental disorder may also experience some intrusive thoughts throughout their lives. However, these recurring ideas begin to gain clinical importance when they become obsessions that paralyze the normal life of the individual and cannot be controlled.

In these cases, these thoughts can be symptoms of major mental disorders that need medical treatment, especially psychotherapy or the intake of drugs prescribed by specialists. Meditation practice could also help you be aware of these kinds of thoughts.

characteristics

Intrusive thoughts can have an internal origin or they can be caused by an external stimulus, for example the vision of an object or a past experience.

The origin of these arguments and their content depends on the mental disorder to which they are associated. The most common syndrome with which intrusive thoughts are associated is obsessive compulsive disorder.

This disease consists of a series of obsessions and compulsions that are repeated in the mind of the individual and that prevent them from carrying out, normally, activities as simple as going to work or spending free time with friends or family.

The obsessions that occur with this disorder are involuntary, intrusive thoughts, images or impulses that trigger feelings of anguish. On the other hand, they can be accompanied by compulsions such as the behaviors carried out by the patient to reduce this anguish.

These obsessions usually have an unpleasant content, which is what generates that anguish in those who suffer them.

Types of intrusive thoughts

There are two types of intrusive thoughts; negative and positive.

Depending on whether the thought is negative or positive, the influence that these arguments have on the individual's mood may vary.

Negative intrusive thoughts can spoil your mood. They are those that occur when you suffer from a mental disorder.

Negative intrusive thoughts are those suffered by people with obsessive compulsive disorder. Within these ideas with negative content, several common themes can be distinguished.

There are three main themes that intrusive thoughts usually contain: profanity, aggressive, or sexual in content.

Blasphemous intrusive thoughts

The role of religious beliefs is already important in the development of obsessive compulsive disorder. There are several scientific studies that analyze the influence of a specific faith in the course of this disease.

These beliefs can become obsessions in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Some examples of blasphemous intrusive thoughts are:

- obscene images of holy figures like the Virgin Mary.

- Believe, irrationally and continuously that you are possessed.

- Fear of not acting properly or correctly, according to what religious doctrines say.

Aggressive intrusive thoughts

Intrusive thoughts can also have aggressive content. Mental images are recurrent in which the patient harms his loved ones or himself, as well as anyone he sees in a vulnerable situation on the street. For example, a child or an elderly person.

Some real cases are the following:

- Feeling the urge to violently attack and kill a dog

- Having the mental image of throwing oneself or throwing someone onto the subway tracks

- Feeling the urge to harm a child or someone who the individual with the disorder considers weaker than him.

Intrusive sexual thoughts

They are a common symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder patients.

Real examples of intrusive sexual thoughts:

-The recurring mental image of unnatural sexual acts. For example, zoophilia or incest.

- Fear of experiencing a deviation from sexual behavior accepted by society or of committing a sexual crime such as rape.

- Experience obscene images or explicit sex with strangers

Mental disorders associated with intrusive thoughts

Intrusive thoughts can also be experienced during the course of other mental illnesses or after traumatic experiences, in addition to obsessive compulsive disorder.

For example, people with depression may have thoughts related to suicide, on a recurring basis. Although in this case, they are more dangerous, since the patient can carry it out in reality.

People with anxiety may experience an excessive obsession with their own death and the fear that it will come to them at any moment.

People with PTSD also have involuntary mental images. In this case, they are usually related to trauma or past experiences.

Women with postpartum depression may also feel the urge to want to hurt their little ones.

Finally, a study by Thorsteinsdottir and others published in 2016 in the journal Psychooncology, shows that negative intrusive thoughts can appear in people who have just learned that they have been diagnosed with cancer.

Specifically, this research focuses on prostate cancer, but it is not surprising that these types of involuntary ideas appear with other traumatic news.

Treatment

Intrusive thoughts are treated similarly to obsessive compulsive disorder. This consists of a combination of reuptake inhibitor medications (antidepressants and anxiolytics) and psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy should not inhibit intrusive thoughts, as studies have shown that repressing thoughts is counterproductive.

In this sense, a group of researchers from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Maastricht carried out an analysis with people suffering from worrying thoughts.

Removal of these was shown to have short-term effects, but to aggravate symptoms over a longer period of time.

The most common and effective method according to the International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation is exposure and response prevention. Through this technique, the therapist exposes the patient to the thoughts, images or situations that obsess and torment him so that he learns to control them without behaving compulsively.

Facing these involuntary ideas that cause anxiety in those who suffer them is necessary to be able to treat them effectively.

References

1. Belloch, A., Prats, CM, & García-Soriano, G. (2006). Obsession subtypes: relationships with obsessive-compulsive symptoms, dysfunctional beliefs and thought control strategies. Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Psychology, 11 (2). doi: 10.5944 / rppc.vol.11.num.2.2006.4018.
2. Clark, DA (2005). Intrusive thoughts in clinical disorders: theory, research, and treatment. New York: Guilford Press.
3. Geraerts, E., Merckelbach, H., Jelicic, M., & Smeets, E. (2006). Long term consequences of suppression of intrusive anxious thoughts and repressive coping. Behavior Research and Therapy, 44 (10), 1451-1460. doi: 10.1016 / j.brat.2005.11.001.