Bay Area CBT Center · Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Defusion Practice
Fusion is when a thought stops feeling like a thought and starts feeling like the truth. Defusion doesn't make the thought go away and doesn't try to prove it wrong. It changes your relationship to it — from something you're looking through to something you're looking at. Two numbers tell you whether it worked, and only one of them is about believing it less.
How this works
- Catch the thought in its raw form, the way your mind actually says it. Not “I have some self-esteem stuff.” The actual sentence: “You're pathetic.”
- Rate two things before you start. How much you believe it, and how much it pushes you around. These come apart, and that's the interesting part.
- Run one or two techniques, properly and slowly. Thirty seconds of half-hearted repetition does nothing. Give it a real minute.
- Rate both again. Often the believability barely moves and the grip drops a lot. That is a success, not a partial one.
You are not trying to believe it less
That's cognitive restructuring, which is a different tool and a good one. Defusion has a different target: how much the thought runs you. A thought you fully believe but that no longer dictates your afternoon has been defused successfully. Watch the second number.
The techniques
Pick one or two per thought. Different ones suit different people and different thoughts — the point of the log below is to find out which ones work for you, rather than assuming the popular one should.
- “I'm having the thought that…” — Say the thought. Then say it again with that phrase in front. Then again with “I notice I'm having the thought that…”. Each layer puts a little more distance between you and it.
- Name the story — Most recurring thoughts are episodes of a long-running show. Give yours a title: the Not Good Enough story, the They're Going to Leave story. When it starts up, name it: “Ah — that one again.”
- Silly voice — Say it in a cartoon voice, or a sports announcer's, or the voice of someone you find ridiculous. This feels stupid, which is the mechanism: it's hard to be gripped by something absurd.
- Word repetition — Take the loaded word — failure, useless, unlovable — and say it out loud fast for thirty to forty-five seconds. It reliably decays into noise. That noise is what the word actually is.
- Thank your mind — “Thanks, mind. I see what you're doing.” Your mind is a threat-detection machine doing its job badly but sincerely. Hostility toward it tends to feed it.
- Leaves on a stream — Eyes closed. Put each thought on a leaf and let the current take it. Don't push the leaves. When you notice you've floated off with one, that noticing is the practice.
- Screens and subtitles — Put the thought on a screen across the room. Change the font. Add karaoke music. Scroll it along the bottom like a news ticker.
- Ask what it's for — “If I follow this thought, where does it take me? Toward the life I want, or away from it?” Useful when the thought is true and still not helpful.
Step 1The log
One thought per cardWork one thought at a time. Rate before, run the technique properly, rate after.
How much the grip loosened
Change in how much each thought pushed you around. Negative numbers are the win here — the thought lost its grip. Ranked from the biggest drop down.
How much the grip loosened
Change in how much each thought pushed you around. Negative numbers are the win here — the thought lost its grip. Ranked from the biggest drop down.
Rate a thought before and after and the change appears here.
How much the believability moved
Usually much less than the grip — and that is the expected result, not a failure. Compare this list against the one above.
How much the believability moved
Usually much less than the grip — and that is the expected result, not a failure. Compare this list against the one above.
This fills in alongside the one above.
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