The topic of thought control has generated a great body of work in the fields of clinical and experimental psychology in the last two decades, with research indicating both beneficial (Engen and Anderson, 2018) and counterproductive effects (Magee et al., 2012). For example, the seminal work of Wegner (1994) underscored the detrimental effects of thought suppression (the white bear effect), whereas recent research indicates that “failures in suppression” (rather than thought suppression) predict psychopathology (Engen and Anderson, 2018; Hulbert and Anderson, 2018). Like Bandura (1997), these authors posit that perceived thought control has a positive role in mental well-being. In line with this, contemporary theories claim that low perceived thought control is strongly related to the experience of negative emotions and might be considered a general psychological vulnerability factor in the etiology and maintenance of emotional disorders (Gallagher et al., 2014).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01446/full
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