94% of people have experienced unwanted, intrusive thoughts.
Many see these as signs of mental disturbance but, according to new research from around the world, fully 94% of people have experienced unwanted, intrusive thoughts or impulses.
The phenomenon is not confined solely to people with obsessive-compulsive disorder and other problematic thinking patterns.
The research comes from Concordia University in Canada and 15 other institutions in different countries, including France, Hong Kong, Sierra Leone and Australia (Moulding et al., 2014).
They found that across 777 participants, almost all of them had experienced intrusive thoughts or images in the last three months.
The types of strategies people used to distract themselves from these thoughts were also relatively universal:
* People told themselves to stop,
* they thought about something pleasant instead,
* they reassured themselves,
* and they reasoned with themselves.
People who used confrontational strategies like reasoning with themselves tended to have fewer intrusive thoughts than those who used avoidant strategies, like thinking about something pleasant instead.
Intrusive thoughts
One of the study's authors Adam Radomsky, explained:
"We're more similar than we are different.He continued:
People with OCD and related problems are very much like everyone else."
"This study shows that it's not the unwanted, intrusive thoughts that are the problem - it's what you make of those thoughts.Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders
And that's at the heart of our cognitive and behavioral interventions for helping people overcome OCD."
For instance, most people who have an intrusive thought about jumping off a balcony or a metro platform would tell themselves that it's a strange or silly thing to think, whereas a person with OCD may worry that the thought means they're suicidal.
OCD patients experience these thoughts more often and are more upset by them, but the thoughts themselves seem to be indistinguishable from those occurring in the general population."
Reader Comments
Just a thought but maybe the original sin that we are supposedly born (Christian belief) with is these outside thoughts that bombard us and create confusion about what and who we are? Many Christians believe in this, maybe it rings true because of the truth hidden within the lie?
We all need to recognise the different sources of our thoughts. Is it lower mind, higher mind or outside influences? We all decide what we are, unless of course you sit on the fence and let those thoughts dictate!