The instruction to stop overthinking fails for the same reason the instruction to not think about a white bear fails. The effort to suppress a thought keeps the thought active. More fundamentally, the overthinking is serving a function. It is the mind's way of managing an emotional state that feels intolerable. Telling the mind to stop managing that state without providing an alternative way to process the underlying emotion leaves the person worse off, because now they have the original anxiety plus the frustration of failing to control their own thoughts.
A therapist for overthinking near Deerfield Beach, Florida recognizes that the solution is not suppression. Dr. David Steinbok's psychodynamic approach works to understand the function the overthinking serves and to address the emotional material underneath it. As the patient develops the capacity to sit with the underlying feelings rather than thinking their way around them, the compulsive mental activity naturally reduces.
