A book review of Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: a CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts by Sally M. Winston, PsyD and Martin N. Seif, PhD
Stars: ****
New Harbinger Publications (2017)
Self-Help
192 pages
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains paid links.
Summary: If you suffer from unwanted, intrusive, frightening, or even disturbing thoughts, you might worry about what these thoughts mean about you. Thoughts can seem like messages—are they trying to tell you something? But the truth is that they are just thoughts, and don’t necessarily mean anything. Sane and good people have them. If you are someone who is plagued by thoughts you don’t want—thoughts that scare you, or thoughts you can’t tell anyone about—this book may change your life.
In this compassionate guide, you’ll discover the different kinds of disturbing thoughts, myths that surround your thoughts, and how your brain has a tendency to get “stuck” in a cycle of unwanted rumination. You’ll also learn why common techniques to get rid of these thoughts can backfire. And finally, you’ll learn powerful cognitive behavioral skills to help you cope with and move beyond your thoughts, so you can focus on living the life you want. Your thoughts will still occur, but you will be better able to cope with them—without dread, guilt, or shame.
If you have unwanted thoughts, you should remember that you aren’t alone. In fact, there are millions of people just like you—good people who have awful thoughts, gentle people with violent thoughts, and sane people with “crazy” thoughts. This book will show you how to move past your thoughts so you can reclaim your life!
Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts
This book is about a sensitive subject but if you’re reading this, you probably struggle with intrusive thoughts. An intrusive thought, as taught by the book, is a common occurrence to everyone but for most people it comes and goes very quickly. It’s when it sticks and comes back around that we have trouble with them.
Not sure if you’ve had an intrusive thought? Ever had a fleeting thought like, “I could push him into traffic just now” or “I want to shout obscenities in church?” Those are intrusive thoughts.
The book explains all different kinds of thoughts so that you know you’re not alone. Then it goes over typical “fixes” for these thoughts and why they don’t work. Then it tells you what WILL work. I will tell you right now the fix will feel weird, even wrong. But it’s been shown to work. Oh and finally the book talks about when intrusive thoughts have crossed over to urges. This book showed me that my intrusive thoughts are actually urges so I was not able to try out the fix myself.
If your thoughts are scaring you and you’re worried you might be a secretly bad person or will do something bad, this book may help.
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