Effects of suppressing neutral and obsession-like thoughts in normal subjects

Abstract

Recent cognitive-behavioral theories on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) show that deliberate attempts to suppress intrusive and undesirable thoughts lie at the genesis of clinical obsessions. In this paper the results of an experimental study on the suppression of neutral and obsession-like thoughts in normal subjects are presented. Thirty-eight university students performed in three experimental periods: 1) base-line monitoring, 2) experimental instruction, and 3) monitoring. For each of these periods, the frequency of the occurrence of a “white bear” thought or a personally relevant intrusive thought was registered. Half of the subjects received instructions to suppress the target-thought in period 2, and the other half were instructed to only monitor the target-thought in each of the experimental periods. The results show that none of the experimental groups increased the frequency of their target-thought in relation to the baseline. However, the between-groups comparisons revealed that the suppress/intrusive group registered more intrusions in period 3 than the non-suppress/intrusive group. These data suggest the existence of a rebound effect for intrusive thoughts, whereas this effect was not observed when using neutral thoughts.