Challenging Intrusive Thoughts Worksheet

What are intrusive thoughts?

Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that suddenly pop out of nowhere. They are usually unwanted and can even cause distress to the point that a person's day can be disrupted, affecting as well as their mental well-being.

Those who experience intrusive thoughts to a severe degree may become anxious, panic, or just become unable to move or do anything at all, and that's not good, especially if the person has important matters to attend to. Sometimes, it can be a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder or caused by post-traumatic stress disorder.

For those taking therapy to find help and support in managing intrusive thoughts, worksheets have been developed to help them develop positive coping strategies. These worksheets come in different forms, but what they have in common is that they all aim to help mental health professionals and their clients identify, examine, and even challenge or replace especially intrusive negative thoughts. They give clients exercises to help them reframe their thoughts so they can develop and learn ways to control or eliminate cognitive distortions that bring negative thinking.

How to use the Challenging Intrusive Thoughts Worksheet

Our downloadable Challenging Intrusive Thoughts Worksheet requires clients to pinpoint intrusive thoughts that have greatly troubled them.

Upon noting their intrusive thoughts, clients are presented with a set of thought-provoking questions to challenge them. These questions are carefully designed to challenge and counteract intrusive thoughts effectively. Furthermore, the worksheet permits clients to create customized questions, up to five, to challenge their intrusive thoughts further.

The ultimate objective is for clients to employ these questions to challenge their intrusive thoughts and, as a result, improve response prevention and cultivate a more beneficial and constructive thought pattern based on their answers.

When is it best to use the Challenging Intrusive Thoughts Worksheet?

Intrusive Thoughts Worksheets are a valuable component of cognitive behavioural therapy programs. When you reach a point in the program where it becomes evident that your client's distress is significantly influenced by intrusive and negative automatic thoughts, which have become pervasive in their daily life, it is crucial to promptly introduce techniques such as cognitive restructuring, decatastrophization, thought stopping, and more. Introducing this worksheet can be an effective way to help them apply the techniques they have learned. You can provide them multiple copies, as the worksheet accommodates only one intrusive thought, or advise them to make additional copies if they have a digital version.

Clients can complete the worksheet during a therapy session or as a take-home assignment to be submitted at the next appointment.

It is essential to inform them that whenever intrusive thoughts bombard their mind, they should refer to the worksheet and attempt to complete it while the thoughts are still "fresh." However, it is also acceptable for them to answer the worksheet at a later time to allow for reflection on their experience with intrusive thoughts. If intrusive thoughts arise during essential tasks, especially if it involves their work, reassure them that it is permissible to postpone completing the worksheet until they have a work break or are in a more suitable environment, such as their home.

How can a mental health professional benefit from the worksheet?

A mental health professional can use the challenging intrusive thoughts worksheet to help clients manage negative thoughts and reduce anxiety by guiding them in transforming these thoughts into more positive ones. Here's how they can specifically benefit:

It can help therapists understand their patients better.

Discussing mental health issues is difficult to do on the part of the therapist's client. Some may find it easy, but most don't, not because they don't want to talk about it, but because they just have a hard time articulating themselves, sometimes out of fear of being judged.

Issuing worksheets to clients is one way to get them to open up, primarily through writing. If you have identified intrusive thoughts that cause your client's distress but can't seem to explain them, you can have them write them on the worksheet and then work on it together to help your client challenge these thoughts. You can understand what goes through their mind by reading what they write down.

It can help clients find the emotional distance they need to examine their thoughts.

The Challenging Intrusive Thoughts Worksheet can help clients find the emotional distance they might need to examine their thoughts properly. This distance is crucial because it will help them determine what is causing them. The questions on the worksheet should also help instill the inclination to interrogate these thoughts and challenge them. 

It can teach them to cope with intrusive thoughts more rationally and healthily.

It's best that you teach them skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, cognitive restructuring, de-catastrophization, and more before you issue the Challenging Intrusive Thoughts Worksheet to your client. That way, they will know how to complete the worksheet properly.

Once they can challenge their intrusive thoughts using the questions on the worksheet, they can chart a course that includes replacing these and developing better defense and coping mechanisms to prevent their intrusive thoughts from ruining their days.