Why is it that when I'm thinking about something that I don't want to think about, and know that I don't want to be thinking about it, that I can't stop thinking about it?! -Ben Horney

Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner has done extremely interesting empirical work on this topic. You can read a summary of his findings here ( http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/%7Ewegner/seed.htm ). Wegner’s research suggests that consciously trying to suppress a thought has the ironic consequence of making that thought more rather than less available to our conscious and non-conscious mental processes. Wegner thinks this happens because mental control rests on two distinct processes – a conscious operating process that works explicitly to suppress the thought in question, and an unconscious ironic process thatchecks periodically to see whether the operating process is workingeffectively. This means that while the operating process is busyhelping us find other things to think about, the ironic process keepsfocusing on the content itself, thereby rendering it accessible. Wegnerthinks that this two-part model can help explain a range of otherwiseperplexing...