Breaking the Cycle of Overthinking: Psychotherapy and Counseling Services in Soda Springs
Overthinking can cause you to obsessively worry, analyze, or catastrophize. These thought patterns can cause unnecessary fear and stress that affect you, your relationships, and your view of situations.
Through therapeutic intervention, you can learn how to identify and break out of overthinking cycles. At PVFC, our psychotherapy and counseling services in Soda Springs are designed to help you find coping skills for your long-term success.
About Overthinking
When you struggle with overthinking, it can be hard to separate your thoughts from the truth. This pattern often starts as a simple fear or worry. But instead of solving the problem by challenging or addressing that fear or worry, overthinking involves ruminating on it and feeding into it.
For many people, it can quickly turn into a spiral, with hypothetical scenarios and other negative thoughts turning into strong fears or stressors. The deeper you fall into this repetitive cycle, the more overwhelming these thoughts can become.
Overthinking is not a mental illness, but it can be a symptom of or contribute to another mental health condition, such as depression, OCD, or anxiety. For example, it might cause someone who struggles with anxiety to feel more anxious when they start to spiral.
If you frequently experience one or more of the following, you might struggle with overthinking:
- Assuming the worst
- Fixating on the past or future
- Mentally replaying interactions
- Needing reassurance from others
- Second-guessing your choices
- Struggling to make decisions
Common Types of Overthinking
Everyone’s overthinking patterns can look a little different. Sometimes, these thoughts stem from a real situation or fear that has become heightened; other times, they stem from an insecurity, misinterpretation, or false assumption that lives in your mind.
Four common types of overthinking include:
- Catastrophizing: When you catastrophize, your brain automatically jumps to the worst possible outcome of a given situation.
- Worrying about the future: This might cause you to get caught up in negative hypotheticals about an upcoming situation or event.
- Obsessing about the past: Ruminating over something you have said or done in the past is a common form of overthinking.
- Overanalyzing: When you overanalyze, you might subconsciously look for confirmation that a thought in your head is true, looking for proof that doesn’t actually exist and giving unnecessary meaning to things.
What Does Overthinking Look Like?
Imagine a person who struggles with ruminating over the past. They might nitpick something they said the day before and replay it in their mind over and over, believing that what they said was embarrassing. The more they feed into this thought, the more real it feels—even if no one else even remembered what they said in reality.
These thoughts can affect you, your self-worth, your perception of things, and how you approach your relationships. If you believe that what you say is embarrassing, it can damage your self-esteem. If you believe that others find you embarrassing, you might pull away from them, and so on.
Thankfully, there are steps you can take to combat this and stop the spirals.
Combating Overthinking through Therapy
Therapy can help you learn how to recognize and challenge the overthinking patterns that you struggle with. When you share your thoughts with a mental health professional, they can show you how to catch unhelpful ways of thinking. Once you identify the kinds of thoughts that aren’t serving you, you can reframe them.
For example, you can practice replacing negative hypotheticals with positive ones. For thoughts such as “what if my friends find me annoying?” you can instead ask yourself “what if my friends love having me around?” Over time, it becomes easier to notice and replace unproductive thoughts.
It is normal to seek professional help when dealing with distressing thoughts, and professionals can help you develop strategies for success. They can also offer an outside perspective, allowing you to zoom out from your own mind and view things through a different lens.
You can also dive deeper in these sessions, exploring any contributing mental health concerns and asking yourself why you might feel a certain way. Overthinking is commonly connected to other issues, and therapy offers a safe space to work through all of them so you can find true healing.
PVFC Therapeutic Services
At Portneuf Valley Family Center, we offer psychotherapy and counseling services in Soda Springs. Our goal is to help you address the things that are disrupting your life and find coping skills that you can realistically implement.
Your first session allows us to get to know you and learn more about what pressing issues you are facing. After that, we can work with you to create a treatment plan that best fits your needs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) are just a few of the techniques our team might use.
Before your first session, we recommend writing down questions, allowing yourself time to prepare, and asking yourself what your goals are. Once you’ve had your first meeting with your therapist, we can then discuss next steps with you.
Soda Springs Counseling and Psychotherapy Services
The PVFC team is dedicated to providing local support for people in Soda Springs facing mental health struggles, stressful life events, unhelpful thought patterns, and more. We’re here to help you conquer personal challenges so you can thrive in your everyday life.
Connect with us today so we can get your first Soda Springs counseling session scheduled.