Instead, a more effective strategy is to learn to unhook from the meaning of an intrusive, nonsensical thought by changing what you think it might mean to have that intrusive thought. To unhook from the thought, you’ll want to unhook from its meaning first. Use the downward arrow technique (review exercise 5.1) you learned earlier to identify the hot intrusive thought, but
this time, ask yourself different questions about the thought: How does having this thought make me

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