Post by Admin on May 13, 2023 11:47:22 GMT
The Idea of 'Manifesting' Your Future May Be Bad for Mental Health
The Law of Attraction says thoughts eventually become reality. That's an anxious person's worst nightmare.
www.vice.com/en/article/zmapne/the-idea-of-manifesting-your-future-may-be-bad-for-mental-health
In the self-help-slash-memoir You Are A Badass, Jen Sincero says that she is always able to find an incredible parking spot. Her strategy isn’t to leave early, or to stalk people holding car keys, but to think and believe from the outset that she’s going to get a spot.
“The perfect spot is mine, it already exists and I’m genuinely so happy and grateful for it,” she writes. “I really truly believe this.” Then, just like her thoughts predicted, someone will pull out of the perfect spot exactly when she needs it.
Sincero’s strategy is essentially to “manifest,” the parking spot—to think about it hard enough and will it into existence. Manifesting is not new by any means, but has found a resurgence in the wellness, Instagram-influencer, self-care world. You can find advice on blogs and Instagram accounts on how to manifest an apartment in Paris, an ideal husband, or dream job. There are now several websites where you can print yourself a blank check from the “Universe,” fill in the amount of money you want, and if you “believe and feel that you have the money now,” the money will find its way to you on the date you wrote on the check.
People who espouse manifesting say it works because of the law of attraction which is “the ability to attract into our lives whatever we are focusing on.” The law of attraction is said to have appeared first in an 1877 book by Russian occultist Helena Blavatsky, but was popularized about a decade later by New Thought writers, as part of a movement that emphasized mind-healing through spiritual, religious and metaphysical means.
It has come in and out of vogue since; The Secret was the law of attraction's most recent blockbuster, selling over 30 million copies and translated into 50 languages. Despite its medium, The Law of Attraction’s fundamentals have remained the same. It decrees that “all thoughts turn into things eventually.”
But the law of attraction sounds uncomfortably similar to another concept that many are likely familiar with, even if they don’t know its name: thought-action fusion. Thought-action fusion is a psychological term defined in the mid-1990s for the belief that thoughts and actions are somehow linked together; that thinking something is the same as doing it, or that thoughts alone can cause things to happen—and it’s a risk factor for developing many anxiety disorders, and perpetuating their symptoms.
A person with social anxiety might believe that because they think others are judging them, that makes it true. A person with depression might believe that because they think life isn’t worth living, that extends to reality.
In the therapy sessions that I attend each week for anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, I spend a lot of time learning the opposite lesson: that thoughts do not equal reality. Just because I think that a surface is covered in germs, think that something I’ve done is imperfect, or think something bad will happen—those thoughts do not actually translate to real life.
These are just thoughts, my therapist has taught me to say. They flit around in my mind, uncontrollable and often upsetting, but they are contained there. I can observe them and let them be, and not worry that they’ll leak out through my ears and somehow infiltrate my everyday life.
As the trend of manifesting continues to spread, I find my trusty mantra—these are just thoughts—being challenged. The primary dogma of manifesting is not only that thoughts matter, but that they are causal—that simply thinking something is enough to bring it into existence. I find this concept terrifying, and I’m guessing that other people with anxiety or mental health issues might too.
Clinicians have delineated two kinds of thought-action fusion, says Johanna Thompson-Hollands, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine. There is moral thought-action fusion and likelihood thought-action fusion. In both, people overestimate the power and meaning of their thoughts.
Moral thought-action fusion is the belief that thinking something is morally equivalent to actually doing it— if you think about killing someone, it’s the same as killing someone in real life, for example. Likelihood thought-action fusion is similar to manifesting— it’s the belief that thinking about something will increase the likelihood that it will happen.
Thought-action fusion was first described in OCD. Researchers noticed that OCD patients had this particular kind of cognitive bias: they believed that having a negative thought would make something negative happen. A lot of compulsions and rituals take place to try to avoid or circumvent that bad thing from happening.
The Law of Attraction says thoughts eventually become reality. That's an anxious person's worst nightmare.
www.vice.com/en/article/zmapne/the-idea-of-manifesting-your-future-may-be-bad-for-mental-health
In the self-help-slash-memoir You Are A Badass, Jen Sincero says that she is always able to find an incredible parking spot. Her strategy isn’t to leave early, or to stalk people holding car keys, but to think and believe from the outset that she’s going to get a spot.
“The perfect spot is mine, it already exists and I’m genuinely so happy and grateful for it,” she writes. “I really truly believe this.” Then, just like her thoughts predicted, someone will pull out of the perfect spot exactly when she needs it.
Sincero’s strategy is essentially to “manifest,” the parking spot—to think about it hard enough and will it into existence. Manifesting is not new by any means, but has found a resurgence in the wellness, Instagram-influencer, self-care world. You can find advice on blogs and Instagram accounts on how to manifest an apartment in Paris, an ideal husband, or dream job. There are now several websites where you can print yourself a blank check from the “Universe,” fill in the amount of money you want, and if you “believe and feel that you have the money now,” the money will find its way to you on the date you wrote on the check.
People who espouse manifesting say it works because of the law of attraction which is “the ability to attract into our lives whatever we are focusing on.” The law of attraction is said to have appeared first in an 1877 book by Russian occultist Helena Blavatsky, but was popularized about a decade later by New Thought writers, as part of a movement that emphasized mind-healing through spiritual, religious and metaphysical means.
It has come in and out of vogue since; The Secret was the law of attraction's most recent blockbuster, selling over 30 million copies and translated into 50 languages. Despite its medium, The Law of Attraction’s fundamentals have remained the same. It decrees that “all thoughts turn into things eventually.”
But the law of attraction sounds uncomfortably similar to another concept that many are likely familiar with, even if they don’t know its name: thought-action fusion. Thought-action fusion is a psychological term defined in the mid-1990s for the belief that thoughts and actions are somehow linked together; that thinking something is the same as doing it, or that thoughts alone can cause things to happen—and it’s a risk factor for developing many anxiety disorders, and perpetuating their symptoms.
A person with social anxiety might believe that because they think others are judging them, that makes it true. A person with depression might believe that because they think life isn’t worth living, that extends to reality.
In the therapy sessions that I attend each week for anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, I spend a lot of time learning the opposite lesson: that thoughts do not equal reality. Just because I think that a surface is covered in germs, think that something I’ve done is imperfect, or think something bad will happen—those thoughts do not actually translate to real life.
These are just thoughts, my therapist has taught me to say. They flit around in my mind, uncontrollable and often upsetting, but they are contained there. I can observe them and let them be, and not worry that they’ll leak out through my ears and somehow infiltrate my everyday life.
As the trend of manifesting continues to spread, I find my trusty mantra—these are just thoughts—being challenged. The primary dogma of manifesting is not only that thoughts matter, but that they are causal—that simply thinking something is enough to bring it into existence. I find this concept terrifying, and I’m guessing that other people with anxiety or mental health issues might too.
Clinicians have delineated two kinds of thought-action fusion, says Johanna Thompson-Hollands, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine. There is moral thought-action fusion and likelihood thought-action fusion. In both, people overestimate the power and meaning of their thoughts.
Moral thought-action fusion is the belief that thinking something is morally equivalent to actually doing it— if you think about killing someone, it’s the same as killing someone in real life, for example. Likelihood thought-action fusion is similar to manifesting— it’s the belief that thinking about something will increase the likelihood that it will happen.
Thought-action fusion was first described in OCD. Researchers noticed that OCD patients had this particular kind of cognitive bias: they believed that having a negative thought would make something negative happen. A lot of compulsions and rituals take place to try to avoid or circumvent that bad thing from happening.