How to suppress bad thoughts
As a working therapist for 25 years, one of the hardest interventions to teach is how to control unwanted, or for the sake of a value judgement, "bad" thoughts. There are many articles and types of therapy tricks that deal with this issue. Much of a person's success or failure in controlling their thinking will have to do with the person's willingness to admit to the secondary gains involved with these "bad" thoughts. There is also the element of why the person is having unwanted thoughts. Reasons can range anywhere from guilt, to depression, to psychosis.
In the psychotic mind, "bad" thoughts stem from severe and persistent mental illness. "Delusions" are irrational, fixed ideas that can be annoying, distressing, and even sometimes, pleasurable. Regardless of how you rank them, they intrude on the person's quality of life. If I think I am the Queen of England, and I'm not, it can create quite a kink in my world. It might be initially rewarding to have such a grandiose self image - but only for a while. When Charles and Camilla never arrive for tea and the only crown you have is from your neice's last Burger King birthday party, it can bust the proverbial balloon.
Time to get rid of those unwanted delusions? Medication is the best policy. A diagnosed psychosis is best treated with good drugs - of the antipsychotic kind. Resperidol is one of the newest and the best, but there are others. See a psychiatrist with a well educated perscription pad.
Moving on...
In a slump? Thinking your world is draped in black and you're trapped in a blue funk? Considering changing your address to a deep deep hole in your back yard? Do you keep thinking of your dead dog Rover and the guy who shafted you in the 7th grade for the class Barbie with the fake boobies? Can't get your mind past getting dressed in the morning?
You are, more than likely, clinically depressed. There are great antidepressants out there, like Paxil and Prozac, Wellbutrin, and others but unfortunately they take a good 6 to 10 weeks to kick in. Besides that - and I'll be frank - most depressions are only partially stabilized with medication therapy.
What's the key to getting rid of those unwanted depressive thoughts that make you want to crawl under the covers forever?
COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY...you don't want to "suppress" unwanted thoughts. You want to change them into good thoughts.
The same answer holds true for thinking disorders spanning the gamut of "neuroses" that plague those who are not severely and persistently mentally ill. We are the new "walking wounded" of the mentally ill...not even mentally ill as much as products of our fast paced, stress filled, gotta be perfect, gotta be everything to everybody and look good too world.
We must learn to think in a new way. Cognitive restructuring therapies - the best being cognitive behavioral because it deals not only with changing the way you think but the way you behave - are not a quick fix. They take work by the person requiring the change of thinking as well as by the therapist who is doing the training.
But ultimately, it's like that old joke. How many therapist's does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one - but the lightbulb's really got to want to change. Yuk, yuk.
Cognitive behavioral therapy has a few basic assumptions. One is that we all choose our behaviors. No one make us put on a chicken suit and walk down the center of the highway except us. Subsequently, no one can make us lose weight, learn to tap dance, become an accountant, marry a bum, or say evil things to our husbands when we're angry except - you guessed it- us.
Secondly, our thinking is not magic. Just because I think I am a horrible, awful person or that my ex-husband's new wife is a horrible, awful person does not make me or her a horrible, awful person. Just because I think I deserve a promotion does not mean I deserve one. Just because I think that purple people eaters should be extinct does not make it so. Just because you think - (Insert thought/belief of your choice here) - does not make it so.
Thirdly, if I think a bad thought, it does not mean a bad thing will happen. Remember that old trick for getting through a speech? Look out at the audience and pretend they are all in their underwear? Stop giggling and listen - I'm almost done. Well, just because you think they are all in their Fruit of the Looms and Victoria's Secrets does not mean they are all going to suddenly strip down to their skivies.
Bearing that thought it mind, it also does not mean that because you thought impure thoughts about your 9th grade algebra teacher that you are a bad wife. Wishing your mother in law had a room on the Russian space station does not mean that you are responsible when she ends up in the hospital needing a hip replacement (unless of course you pulled out the dining room chair from under her).
Interested in cognitive behavioral therapy? Pull out your phone book and look up a qualified psychotherapist. Call them up. Make an appointment. Ask them about it. Don't go to a psychiatrist unless you have the type of mental problem that needs medication. Not all mental health problems need medications. But almost all of them need psychotherapy.
Good luck. And remember, next time you step on a crack...honestly, you will not break your mother's back.