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12d • Mental Health 🧠
🔥 Cognitive Fusion: When Thoughts Stick Too Tightly 🔥
If Cognitive Defusion (mentioned earlier) is learning to see thoughts as passing events, Cognitive Fusion is the opposite. It’s when your thoughts feel like absolute truth and dictate your behavior. We feel super attached to the thoughts that we have. This concept also comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and helps explain why some thoughts can feel overwhelming or controlling.
✨ What Cognitive Fusion Is
- Cognitive Fusion happens when you become entangled with your thoughts.(Thinking that you and your thoughts are one and the same)
- Instead of noticing a thought, you treat it as reality.
- This can lead to rigid thinking, avoidance, or impulsive actions.
- Explains why negative thoughts can become so powerful; language and how we internalize it really does shape our experiences.
🧠 Why It Matters
- Fusion can intensify anxiety, depression, and self-criticism.
- It narrows your ability to act according to your values.
- You may find yourself reacting automatically instead of responding intentionally.
🛠️ Signs of Cognitive Fusion
- Literal Thinking ⚠️--treating every thought as a fact
- Emotion Overdrive 💢-emotion intensity occurs because our thoughts and reality blend together
- Rigid Behavior 🚫-acting on unhelpful thoughts even if they go against your values
- Loss of Perspective 🌀-difficulty seeing other possibilites or alternative options
🌿 How to Begin Unfusing (there are more examples of this in a previous post on cognitive defusion)
- Name the Thought 🏷️--"i am having a thought that____"
- Practice Mindfulness 🧘-focus on your body sensations and your breath and notice the thoughts as "just" thoughts; we don't always need to engage with thoughts.
- Use Defusion Techniques 🌊--these were covered in a previous post (sing it, visualize it floating away, write it out)
- Reconnect with Values 💖- Ask yourself, "If I was not hooked by this thought right now, what action would align with my values?"
💬 Question to consider: Have you noticed when you get “hooked” by a thought? What helps you unhook and return to the present?
*There's a cognitive fusion questionnaire available online for free. I am not adding it here due to it being meant for clinical use, but it's something worth looking into. It's brief and simple and can give a pretty good idea of level of congitive fusion occurring. :)
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🔥 Cognitive Fusion: When Thoughts Stick Too Tightly 🔥
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