✨ Discover a curated selection of 10 cognitive defusion techniques, each crafted to help therapists assist clients in detangling from unhelpful thought patterns.

✨ Plus an FAQ section that addresses common questions, enriching your professional toolkit with clarity and ease.

 

10 Cognitive Defusion Exercises +FAQ

 

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Another good silly song is "for he's a jolly good fellow" including the "so say all of us". The most fun I've had with it was a client with Schizophrenia and OCD, fused with the idea that people in the shopping mall knew about an incident where he made "obscene" phone sex calls to some girls he was interested in. It was paralysing his ability to go out in public with his friends. He saw himself as a sick pervert. So we sang "For he's a jolly good pervert...." Try it - its almost impossible to get through twice without collapsing in laughter. It has considerably (but not totally) weakened the power of the idea.

Spanish version submitted by Paulina Salles:

Por qué es un buen compañero

Una canción tonta que sirve para esto es "Porque es un buen compañero", incluyendo el "y nadie lo puede negar".
Lo más gracioso que he tenido con este ejercicio fue con un cliente con esquizofrenia y el TOC, fusionado con la idea de que la gente en el centro comercial sabía acerca de un incidente en donde hizo sexo telefónico "obsceno" llamando a algunas chicas que que le interesaban. Estaba paralizando su capacidad de salir a la calle con sus amigos. Se veía a sí mismo como un enfermo pervertido.
Así que cantamos... "Porque es un buen pervertido...." Pruébelo - es casi imposible pasar dos veces sin que se hunda en la risa.
Este ejercicio debilitó considerablemente (pero no totalmente) el poder de la idea.

This defusion exercise was submitted by Jacqueline A-Tjak on November 15, 2006 Hi , Let me take the bite. I went to a performance with six men. The performance was about 'music is everywhere'. They started by reading a newspaper and making sounds by manipulating the newspaper. And then they started to repeat a sentence, words from the sentence, that turned it into music. The phrase they used was something like: News of the world. One would repeat the phrase, others would say just some words in a certain rythm. I thought it was a great defusion experience. The content of the words disappeared completely. They were noises, sounds, fun. I intend to use this in my therapyroom. Jacqueline

A cognitive defusion and acceptance exercise including instructions (see attached, pdf format). What it is (from the exercise instructions): "In some ways, our experience of anxiety is like our experience of a school of fish. Imagine a school of fish seen from a distance. What you see is a large, looming, perhaps frightening shape moving through the water. It looks more like a large fish, perhaps a shark, than a group of tiny fish... If we got closer we would see the frightening object for what it is: not an object at all, but several smaller objects occurring in about the same space at the same time. "

This defusion exercise was posted by Hermann Meyer on November 29, 2006

Here is one of the best I have come accross: "So Who Are You?"

The witnessing of awareness can persist through waking, dreaming and deep sleep. The Witness is fully available in any state, including your own present state of awareness right now. So I'm going to talk you into this state, or try to, using what are known in Buddhism as "pointing out instructions." I am not going to try to get you into a different state of consciousness, or an altered state of consciousness, or a non-ordinary state. I am going to simply point out something that is already occurring in your own present, ordinary, natural state.

So let's start by just being aware of the world around us. Look out there at the sky, and just relax your mind; let your mind and the sky mingle. Notice the clouds floating by. Notice that this takes no effort on your part. Your present awareness, in which these clouds are floating, is very simple, very easy, effortless, spontaneous. You simply notice that there is an effortless awareness of the clouds. The same is true of those trees, and those birds, and those rocks. You simply and effortlessly witness them.

Look now at the sensations in your own body. You can be aware of whatever bodily feelings are present-perhaps pressure where you are sitting, perhaps warmth in your tummy, maybe tightness in your neck. But even if these feelings are tight and tense, you can easily be aware of them. These feelings arise in your present awareness, and that awareness is very simple, easy, effortless, spontaneous. You simply and effortlessly witness them.

Look at the thoughts arising in your mind. You might notice various images, symbols, concepts, desires, hopes and fears, all spontaneously arising in your awareness. They arise, stay a bit, and pass. These thoughts and feelings arise in your present awareness, and that awareness is very simple, effortless, spontaneous. You simply and effortlessly witness them.

So notice: you can see the clouds float by because you are not those clouds-you are the witness of those clouds. You can feel bodily feelings because you are not those feelings-you are the witness of those feelings. You can see thoughts float by because you are not those thoughts-you are the witness of those thoughts. Spontaneously and naturally, these things all arise, on their own, in your present, effortless awareness.

So who are you? You are not objects out there, you are not feelings, you are not thoughts-you are effortlessly aware of all those, so you are not those. Who or what are you?

Say it this way to yourself: I have feelings, but I am not those feelings. Who am I? I have thoughts, but I am not those thoughts. Who am I? I have desires, but I am not those desires. Who am I?

So you push back into the source of your own awareness. You push back into the Witness, and you rest in the Witness. I am not objects, not feelings, not desires, not thoughts. But then people usually make a big mistake. They think that if they rest in the Witness, they are going to see something or feel something-something really neat and special. But you won't see anything. If you see something, that is just another object-another feeling, another thought, another sensation, another image. But those are all objects; those are what you are not.

No, as you rest in the Witness-realizing, I am not objects, I am not feelings, I am not thoughts-all you will notice is a sense of freedom, a sense of liberation, a sense of release-release from the terrible constriction of identifying with these puny little finite objects, your little body and little mind and little ego, all of which are objects that can be seen, and thus are not the true Seer, the real Self, the pure Witness, which is what you really are.

So you won't see anything in particular. Whatever is arising is fine. Clouds float by in the sky, feelings float by in the body, thoughts float by in the mind-and you can effortlessly witness all of them. They all spontaneously arise in your own present, easy, effortless awareness. And this witnessing awareness is not itself anything specific you can see. It is just a vast, background sense of freedom-or pure emptiness-and in that pure emptiness, which you are, the entire manifest world arises. You are that freedom, openness, emptiness-and not any itty bitty thing that arises in it.

Resting in that empty, free, easy, effortless witnessing, notice that the clouds are arising in the vast space of your awareness. The clouds are arising within you-so much so, you can taste the clouds, you are one with the clouds. It is as if they are on this side of your skin, they are so close. The sky and your awareness have become one, and all things in the sky are floating effortlessly through your own awareness. You can kiss the sun, swallow the mountain, they are that close. Zen says "Swallow the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp," and that's the easiest thing in the world, when inside and outside are no longer two, when subject and object are nondual, when the looker and looked at are One Taste.

You see?

© 1999 Ken Wilber

Spanish translation submitted by Ramiro is attached.

This is an excercise I created for an ACT-based anxiety group.  It uses the thoughts as traffic metaphor and invites clients to do a guided cost-benefit analysis of three common responses to distracting traffic (thoughts).