Back In Control Radio

In this episode, Dr. David Hanscom talks with Dr. Joshua Smyth about the nature and mechanisms for unwanted repetitive thought (URT) patterns. These are thought patterns that persist over time and can have a negative effect on a person’s health and psychology. Dr. Smyth explains that these thoughts often have lots of very emotional associations and can be very experiential / visual. Ironically because of this, trying to suppress them consciously typically just reinforces them. They can damage our health because they trigger the body’s threat response. Joshua Smyth is a Distinguished Professor of Biobehavioral Health and of Medicine at Penn State and Hershey Medical Center and serves as Associate Director of Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute (SSRI). Smyth is an internationally recognized expert on ambulatory assessment and intervention, with a focus on the interplay of stress, emotion, physiology and behavior in everyday life.   He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Academy of Beha