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PHOBIA LIBRARY

Read up on fear, panic and phobia to get a general overview of phobias and trauma and fear management. Learn mindfulness based self care principles and exercises for managing phobias from my books on trauma and self care.
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​Fear | Function | Thought | Treatment | Coping
For Help See: Fear in the Brain | Fear Dictionary
THE LIBRARY TOPIC HOME PAGES
​​Introduction to Trauma, Fear and Phobia
Part 1: ​Defining Fear and the Fear Response
Part 2: Emotional & Cognitive Functions of Fear
Part 3: Maladaptive Thought Processing
​Part 4: Professional Therapy & Mindful Self Care
​THE PHOBIA COLLECTION DOWNLOADS
​Browse Collection of Phobias by Topic
Download Collection of Phobias
Download Dictionary of Fear and Phobia
Download Self Care Guides for Coping

PART THREE - THOUGHTS
​​MALADAPTIVE THOUGHT PROCESSING
​ Articles defining thought, it’s processing, and the maladaptive thinking of cognitive malfunctions, psychological effects, overthinking and the delusions found within common delusional concepts and thoughts.

THOUGHT DIRECTORY

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RELATED SELF CARE GUIDES BY KAIROS
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MALADAPTIVE THOUGHT PROCESSING & FEAR


​IN THIS SECTION
  • ​INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS
  • ANXIOUS THOUGHTS
  • MALADAPTIVE THOUGHTS

INTRUSIVE THOUGHT


​INVASION OF INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS
An intrusive thought is an unwelcome involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that is upsetting or distressing, may become an obsession, and can be difficult to manage or eliminate. For most people, intrusive thoughts are a "fleeting annoyance,” but for others the thoughts may be paralyzing, anxiety-provoking, and persistent. This is demonstrated in PTSD by the brain’s episodic memory triggering panic and anxiety with event related memories, flashbacks and nightmares. Intrusive thoughts, urges, and images can also manifest in inappropriate content triggered at inappropriate times, as seen in aggressive, sexual, or blasphemous themes.

When intrusive thoughts occur with OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), patients are less able to ignore unpleasant or distressing thoughts and may pay undue attention to them, causing the thoughts to become more frequent and intense. The thoughts may turn obsessive and become paralyzing, severe, and constant. These thoughts might involve topics such as violence, sex, or religious blasphemy.

Reactions and Responses
How people react to intrusive thoughts may determine whether these thoughts will escale, grow in intensity, become severe, turn into obsessions, or require emergency treatment.

Carrying out the compulsion reduces the anxiety, but makes the urge to perform the compulsion stronger each time it recurs, reinforcing the intrusive thoughts.

Suppressing intrusive thoughts only makes them stronger but one may be helped by mindfully accepting them, without judgement, and recognizing that bad thoughts do not signify that one is evil.

Accepting the thoughts has been shown as an alternative to the suppression of intrusive thoughts. In one study, people who suppressed intrusive thoughts experienced more distress after suppression, while people instructed to accept the thoughts experienced a decrease in distress.

Actions and Behaviors
The possibility that a person suffering from intrusive thoughts will act on their thoughts is low. Patients who experience intense guilt, anxiety, shame, and who are genuinely distressed over these thoughts are very different from those who actually act on them with no guilt, shame or remorse. The fact that someone is tormented by intrusive thoughts and has never acted on them is fundamentally different than people who are not troubled or shamed by their thoughts or they have already acted on them. They may need to be evaluated for a more serious condition like psychosis and potentially have criminal behaviors ruled out.

Intrusive thoughts may involve violent obsessions about hurting themselves or others and may progress to suicidal ideation. These thoughts can include harming a vulnerable person, the elderly or a child; jumping from a bridge, mountain, or the top of a tall building; the urge to jump in front of a train or car; and the urge to push someone in front of a train or car.

Some Common Intrusions
  • Thoughts to harm, maim or kill oneself
  • Wishing to cause harm to a close friend or family member physically, mentally, or emotionally; impulse to violently attack, hit, harm or kill a person, small child, or animal
  • Impulses to aggressively shout at or verbally abuse someone; wish to verbally lash at people, in front of people or online
  • Desire to punish someone or bully them
  • Inappropriate, rude, nasty, vulgar or sinful or illegal thoughts.

A variant of aggressive intrusive thoughts is called L'appel du vide, or the “call of the void.” People with this affliction describe it as a wish or brief desire to jump from a high location like a bridge, balcony or roof. It manifests when one is within sight and access of the location.

ANXIOUS THOUGHTS


​TRAUMA OF ANXIOUS THOUGHTS
Manipulation is control. It means to play upon by unfair or insidious manner. Anxiety manipulates you. It’s devious by design and inherently greedy. It wants to claim you and own you. Your strength of will is the key. When you work on yourself, develop strong coping mechanisms, build and enforce boundaries and build up your strength, then you can defeat it. You can do this with mindfulness.

It creates SELF-DOUBT. It makes us question ourselves. Each moment anxiety is in control doubt is allowed to grow and fester. It starts to take over and we succumb to its power.

It promotes FEAR. It makes us afraid of everything. The past, the present, the future. It makes us afraid of losing what good we do have.

WORRY becomes a WHAT IF rumination and you trigger past trauma to come to the surface and control you. You worry and fear that what happened before can happen again.

CONTROL. We don’t want our fears to manifest. We hate being held down by our self-doubt. And we are weary of our worries. To get rid of them, to stop the manipulative hands of anxiety from choking us, we mindfully resist.

Mindfulness can take back control. Through the breathing in the present moment we are safe to confront anxiety and take control of anxiety. Use your thoughts to put up a wall between you and self-doubt, worry and fear. Put them behind that wall and focus on the present moment and slowly let them go. You are safe. They cannot break your wall.

MALADAPTIVE THOUGHTS


​Maladaptive thoughts are firmly established patterns of thinking that are often intrusive, negatively biased, rigid, distorted and inaccurate. The following list are common examples.

Akataphasia: refers to a disturbance of speech resulting from a dissolution of logical ordering of thoughts. It manifests as rambling speech.

Asyndesi: an alternate term for loosening of association. A milder form of derailment of thought, it is marked by the individual leaping from topic to topic which have only the most tenuous, if any, connection with each other.

Clouding of consciousness, also known as brain fog or mental fog, is a global impairment in higher central nervous functioning. All aspects of cognitive functioning are affected. On mental status examination it presents as disorientation in time, place and person. Includes memory difficulties caused by failure to register and recall. Impaired perception functioning leads to illusions and hallucinations. This causes agitation and distress and secondary delusions.

Déjà pensé: when a completely new thought sounds familiar to a person and he feels as he has thought the same thing before at some time.This feeling can be caused by seizures which occur in certain parts of the temporal lobe and possibly other areas of the brain.

Derailment: a thought disorder characterized by discourse consisting of a sequence of unrelated or only remotely related ideas. The frame of reference often changes from one sentence to the next.

Dereistic Thinking: an old descriptive term used to refer to thinking that is not in alignment with the facts of reality but follows illogical, idiosyncratic reasoning. This term emphasizes a disconnection from reality.

Écho de la pensée: meaning "thought echo" in French, refers to thoughts that seem to be spoken aloud just after being produced. The individual hears the 'echo' of his thoughts in the form of a voice after he has made the thought.

Flight of ideas: describes excessive speech at a rapid rate that involves causal association between ideas. Links between ideas may involve usage of puns or rhymes. It is typical of mania, classically seen in bipolar disorder.

Gedankenlautwerden: occurs when an individual hears thoughts spoken aloud. Thoughts are heard in the form of a voice at the same time as they are thought, not afterwards.

Idée fixe: an alternate term for an overvalued idea. In this condition, a belief that might seem reasonable both to the individual and to other people comes to dominate the thinker’s life.

Ideas of alienation: thoughts that one's own body part or action is not of one's own.

Ideas of influence: thoughts that one's own action is caused by someone else's will or some other external cause.

Ideas of reference: delusional beliefs that general events are personally directed at oneself. For example, someone might believe that he or she is receiving messages from the TV that are directed especially at him or her.

Jargon aphasia: characterized by incoherent, meaningless speech with neologisms (newly invented words). These are unconscious thoughts that find expression when one is off one's guard and must be consciously repressed.

Knight's move thinking: a complete loosening of associations where there is no logical link between one idea and the next. Imagine a knight on a chessboard where the movement can be any L shaped direction, making it difficult to track..

Thought blocking (also referred to as thought withdrawal): refers to an abrupt stop in the middle of a train of thought; the individual might or might not be unable to continue the idea.
MORE ON THOUGHT PROCESSING
This content is provided for informational purposes only. Author is not a medical professional. Talk to your doctor to determine what therapy is right for you.
Self care techniques are meant to supplement professional treatment not replace it.
DISCLAIMER OF THE LEARNING LIBRARY

BROWSE PHOBIA COLLECTION​
​Phobia collection is presented in eight themed parts
​VIEW LIST INDEX or ​JUMP TO A PART
PART [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]

PHOBIA COLLECTION BY TOPIC​
common ~ abstract ~ ordinary ~ bizarre ~ catastrophic ~ psyche ~ icky - academic ~ knowledge ~ education ~ literary ~ art ~ music ~ religion ~ political ~ law ~ order military ~ war ~ discrimination ~ science ~ chemical ~ energy ~ time ~ numbers ~ technology ~ nature ~ environment ~ astronomy ~ weather ~ geography ~ people ~ family ~ community ~ anatomy ~ medical ~ disease ~ emotions ~ senses ~ sensations ~ movement ~ conditions~ love ~ relationships ~ sexuality ~ lifestyle ~ places ~ events ~ objects ~ clothing ~ tools ~ vehicles ~ home ~ cooking ~ food ~ entertainment ~ sports ~ recreation ~ toys ~ games ~ monsters ~ characters ~ spooky ~ nightmares ~ delusional ~ joke ~ fiction

​DOWNLOAD PONDERING THE PHOBIA
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All the phobias in one download. Browse by both topic/subject and by alphabetized list
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​OTHER PHOBIA AND FEAR DOWNLOADS:
​Dictionary of Trauma, Phobia and Fear
Self Care Guides for Fear & Phobias​
Library articles provided by my series Healing the PTSD Mind ​ and my series on mindfulness based self care Be Mindful Be Well​. The books are written from a trauma perspective. Content applies to fear, phobias and panic. Learn self care treatments with mindfulness techniques.
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