Detached mindfulness: What it is and how it works
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Every day, you have thousands of thoughts. Where do they all go? And what happens to the ones that you don't engage with? Most of them just pass through, like water through a strainer.
But what happens to the thoughts that you do engage with? The ones you worry about, analyze, or try to push away? Those are likely the ones that stay with you the longest, and that keep coming back. They may feel important, or even threatening.
The thing is, they feel important and threatening because you keep responding to them as if they are. What would happen if you could approach stressful and negative thoughts the same way you approach all your other thoughts — as passing experiences in your mind? Would they feel as important and concerning? Would they take up as much time and energy? Or would you discover that transient thoughts can't harm you, and that you don't necessarily need to respond to them or solve them?
You already know how to use detached mindfulness
Although it may not feel like it, you already have the ability to let negative thoughts exist without engaging with them. Consider the fact that you do nothing about roughly 99% of the the thoughts you have in a day — many of which are negative.
You may notice them, but you don't try to suppress them, analyze them, or alter them. Sometimes, you may notice a thought pop up that you would normally analyze or worry about, but because you're busy with something else, you leave it alone and continue what you're doing, instead. This is detached mindfulness in practice, and it's a crucial component of Metacognitive Therapy (MCT).
How detached mindfulness works
Detached mindfulness is being aware of your thoughts and inner experiences, and choosing not to respond to them. It's the ability to recognize that thoughts are just thoughts, and knowing that even your most triggering thoughts are simply brain activity, separate from yourself and from reality. What does that mean? Having a random thought that you might have cancer, or that you're a failure, doesn't mean that you have cancer or are a failure.
Noticing your thoughts without interfering with them means that you don't respond by worrying, analyzing them, trying to suppress them, or coping with them in any way.
Detached mindfulness allows you to choose which thoughts to focus on and engage with, instead of feeling like your mind is out of your control and 'stuck' in certain thought loops.
Detached Mindfulness involves the following components (Wells, 2005, 2009):
Meta-awareness: being aware of the thoughts that are in your mind.
Cognitive de-centering: the understanding that these thoughts are merely passing experiences in your mind, and not necessarily representations of reality.
Attentional detachment and control: your attention isn't 'stuck' on any particular thought or symptom; it remains flexible and you can choose where to direct it.
Low conceptual processing: minimal time is used on inner dialogue, analysis or interpretation of your thoughts.
Minimal goal-directed coping: you're not changing your behaviour to cope with negative thoughts (for example, avoiding situations, doing breathing exercises, scanning for threats, or seeking reassurance).
Altered self-awareness: experiencing yourself as an observer of your thoughts and beliefs rather than identifying with them (you experience yourself as being separate from and more than your thoughts).
Detached mindfulness interrupts the processes that maintain mental distress
Detached mindfulness interrupts the Cognitive Attentional Syndrome (CAS). The CAS interferes with your mind's natural ability to self-regulate, thereby causing and maintaining mental distress. By interrupting the CAS, your mind is allowed to self-regulate.
For instance, someone with generalized anxiety might constantly worry, analyze all their negative thoughts and feelings, and always monitor for signs of danger, which maintains their anxiety. By instead applying detached mindfulness to trigger thoughts, they're no longer engaging in thinking processes that maintain anxiety, and they'll discover that worrying is not outside of their control.
Think of how you trust your body to deal with wounds. You don't necessarily know exactly how your body heals wounds, but you know that if you leave it alone and don't scratch or pick at it, your body will naturally recover. Your thoughts are the same, and engaging in the CAS is like scratching at them.
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Detached mindfulness challenges the beliefs that leads to mental unhealth
Challenging unhelpful metacognitive beliefs is a main goal of metacognitive therapy, and applying detached mindfulness to triggers is an effective way of challenging unhelpful metacognitive beliefs.
When you apply detached mindfulness to triggers (do nothing) instead of activating the CAS (worry, rumination, suppression etc.), this allows you to discover that your inner experiences such as negative thoughts, anxiety symptoms, and strong emotions are simply passing events in your mind and body that aren't harmful and that you don't need to cope with in any way. It also allows you to discover that thought processes such as worrying, and rumination are in fact neither uncontrollable, harmful, nor helpful.
(Re)discovering detached mindfulness
A common misconception is that detached mindfulness is a technique or a strategy that you need to learn. It's not. In fact, this is the way you already relate to most of the thoughts you have every day.
Responding to trigger thoughts with detached mindfulness doesn't require learning a new skill — it's about discovering that you can apply the ways you relate to your neutral thoughts, to your triggering thoughts.
Metacognitive Therapy shows you that this is something you already know how to do through practical exercises, dialogue, and homework.
But aren't thoughts important?
The concept of detached mindfulness can seem complicated at first. Maybe you feel like worrying is out of your control, or certain thoughts are truly important and require a response. After all, how can you stay prepared and solve problems in your life if you're not supposed to engage with your negative thoughts?
Imagine you have a thought that triggers worry, like 'What if I mess up at work tomorrow?'. If you choose to respond to this thought with detached mindfulness, instead of worrying about it, you'll simply notice the thought and move on with your day without giving it more energy or effort.
Leaving the thought alone actually frees up more time to focus on productive topics and activities instead of spending all your mental energy on a thought about an event that may or may not happen. In that way, detached mindfulness leaves MORE room, time and energy to deal with actual problems and practical to-dos in your life.
What if the thought is about something real?
Some thoughts relate to situations that you do need to deal with — and that's okay. If you have a thought about forgetting to send an email, you should take action to send that email. Then, you can move on with your day without ruminating or worrying about it. There's a key difference between taking action to solve a problem VS worrying about that problem.
And as difficult as it can be to make this shift, if you're thinking about a real issue that you can't do anything about, there's still no point in ruminating or worrying about it. Dwelling on it is a waste of time and energy, and adds to your burden.
If you can't do anything about an issue right now, but you might be able to in the future, simply set aside a time to revisit the issue later, and apply detached mindfulness to it in the meantime.
Detached mindfulness helps you to not get caught up in endless cycles of worrying and rumination. You can simply choose to leave your thoughts alone (even if they're still there), and revisit them later if you want to.
Even if the situation is real, the thought is still a thought.
Consider this simple exercise: Look at a pen in front of you, then close your eyes and picture the pen.
What's inside your head now?
You'll likely answer, 'a pen'. But do you actually have a real pen inside your head, or is it just the idea of a pen? The thought of a pen is not the same thing as the pen itself. This is also true for a thought about an accident and an actual accident, or the thought about a mistake and an actual mistake.
An accident is a real situation that requires action and attention. A thought about an accident is very rarely necessary or helpful to engage with.
Myth-busting detached mindfulness
People often confuse detached mindfulness with mindfulness meditation or other meditation practices, and while they may look similar, there are some major and important differences. The theoretical foundations and goals differ between mindfulness and detached mindfulness, and the way the methods are used and practiced in everyday life are also very different.
While mindfulness is based in buddhist tradition, detached mindfulness is based in cognitive science research. Detached mindfulness is a specific way of relating to inner experiences that allows you to recognize them as passing events in your mind that you don't need to engage with.
Detached mindfulness is not about achieving acceptance, a calm body and mind, or reducing discomfort, but about discovering that you have control over how you respond to thoughts and inner experiences.
Detached mindfulness doesn't use anchors for attention, and discourages trying to change thoughts in any way (like visualizing them as clouds or leaves on a river). Instead, detached mindfulness promotes flexible use of attention.
Detached mindfulness does not require you to sit down or devote regular times to a practice. It's about doing nothing with your inner experiences as you go about your day. This reduces time spent worrying and ruminating, frees up mental capacity, and leads to change in how you experience your thoughts and feelings, and in what you believe about them. You can discover, for example, that even your scariest thoughts are transient experiences that can't harm you.
A common mistake people make when trying to apply detached mindfulness, is that they have the goal of making negative thoughts pass, or to feel better. The goal of detached mindfulness is neither. It's simply to notice that the thoughts and feelings are there, and to choose to continue with your day without solving or changing them — at least for the moment. As you move on with your day, you may notice that the thoughts have passed or that you feel better, or you may not. It doesn't matter, as that's not the goal. If you left it alone, you were applying detached mindfulness.
How do I apply detached mindfulness?
Detached mindfulness is not something you need to practice or improve at. It's something you're already capable of. But in its simplicity, it's easy to misunderstand.
If you feel unsure about how and when to apply detached mindfulness, finding a qualified metacognitive therapist can make a big difference. Check out this article about how to get started with Metacognitive Therapy, and book your first session today.
Selection of consulted references:
Wells, A. (2005). Detached mindfulness in cognitive therapy: A metacognitive analysis and ten techniques. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 23(4), 337–355. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10942-005-0018-6
Wells, A. (2009). Metacognitive therapy for anxiety and depression. Guilford Press.
Capobianco, L., & Nordahl, H. (2023). A brief history of metacognitive therapy: From cognitive science to clinical practice. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 30(1), 45–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpra.2021.11.002
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