How to Use Humor to Disarm OCD Intrusive Thoughts
Jul 22, 2026
If you've seen Harry Potter, you know what a boggart is. It's a creature that crawls into your head and takes the shape of whatever you fear most, completely terrifying and overwhelming until you cast Riddikulus and it turns into something your brain can't take seriously anymore. It loses all its power.
Your intrusive thoughts work the same way. They're not scary because they're dangerous. They're scary because you treat them like they are. The moment you stop taking them so seriously, they lose their grip.
Here's how to actually use humor as a real evidence-based tool to disarm OCD, and the trap to watch for if you're doing it wrong.
WHY IT WORKS
There's Real Clinical Backing Behind This
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), there's a technique called cognitive defusion. The whole point is to create distance between you and your thoughts, to see a thought as just a thought, not a fact, not a command, not evidence of anything about you.
Humor is one of the most powerful ways to do that. When you treat an intrusive thought like a punchline instead of a catastrophe, you're sending your brain a completely different signal. Research shows that laughter actually reduces cortisol, the stress hormone that keeps anxiety running. You physically cannot feel the same level of dread while you're genuinely amused.
You're not making the thoughts go away. You're changing your relationship with them. That's the exact cycle ERP is designed to break.
TECHNIQUE #1
Agree, but take it so far it becomes absurd
When OCD throws a thought at you, your instinct is to fight it, argue it down, prove it wrong. Don't. Instead, agree with it, but so over the top that it becomes ridiculous.
- ✓ OCD: "What if you left the stove on?" You: "Oh absolutely. I'm planning a full neighborhood cookout. All four burners. The whole block is coming. I'm not turning them off today."
- ✓ OCD: "What if you hurt that person?" You: "Yep, I'm basically the rudest person alive. They're probably writing a book about me right now and telling everyone they know."
You're not dismissing the fear, you're refusing to engage with it on OCD's terms. Think of it as a tug-of-war. OCD on one side, you on the other, both pulling. Drop the rope. OCD keeps pulling, but there's nothing there to pull against.
OCD is designed to escalate when you resist. It doesn't know what to do when you just drop the rope and walk away.
TECHNIQUE #2
Give OCD a ridiculous voice
This comes straight out of cognitive defusion research. Give your OCD a character voice, not a scary one. A squeaky cartoon mouse. A very confused pirate. A dramatic ghost who's personally offended by everything. Whatever makes you laugh.
When the intrusive thought shows up, hear it in that voice.
"Or ye matey, might have left that stove on. Disaster be upon ye." / "Oh boy, you're going to hurt that person. How amazing."
Try to feel genuine dread about something when it sounds like that. You're going to feel two signals at the same time, the threat and amusement. The thoughts are still there, but they sound different. And your brain starts to wonder: wait, is this actually an emergency?
The thoughts haven't changed. Your relationship to them has.
TECHNIQUE #3
Put the scary image in a ridiculous costume
Take the scary image OCD keeps showing you and dress it up.
- ✓ Harm OCD images? Put the figure on a tiny bicycle. Make it juggle. Give it a clown nose.
- ✓ Contamination OCD? Picture the germs with tiny little hats on, doing a dance.
- ✓ Fear of going to jail? Prison bars made of pool noodles. Guards in tutus. It's a school play.
You're not telling yourself the fear isn't real. You're refusing to let your brain run the dramatic version of the movie. You're the director now.
THE TRAP
When Humor Becomes a Compulsion
Like any tool, humor can be misused. Watch for this red flag: if you feel like you must make a joke every time a thought appears, and if you don't, you won't feel okay, it might not be humor anymore. You've swapped one ritual for another.
Real cognitive defusion isn't about making the discomfort disappear. It's about letting you feel it without reacting to it. Humor works when it helps you stay in the moment with the thought, not escape from it.
Sometimes the right move is to put humor aside entirely and just sit with the discomfort. That's okay too. Not everything needs a punchline.
Where Humor Gets Really Powerful: Combined with ERP
Humor is good on its own. But combined with exposure work, it's where the real results happen.
One of the hardest parts of ERP is staying in an exposure when anxiety spikes, without bailing early to do a ritual. Humor lowers the volume just enough to keep you in it. Bring in the cartoon voice. Agree with the thought. And then move toward the exposure anyway.
Go look at the thing. Touch the thing. Write the word. Allow the thought without pushing it away. Feel the anxiety, and stay.
Humor doesn't replace the hard work. It makes the hard work more doable. That's its job.
Next time an intrusive thought shows up, try one of these three techniques. Especially when you say some of this stuff out loud, your brain genuinely doesn't know what to do. OCD wants every thought to be an emergency. Now you've got Riddikulus in your toolkit.
To see how to combine all of this with a full ERP plan, the Master Your OCD course walks through the complete system, 67 videos, every subtype, all from home. You can preview it free.
Nathan Peterson, LCSW, Licensed therapist specializing in OCD, anxiety, and related conditions. Nathan has helped thousands of people through evidence-based treatment and education.
LCSW Licensed Therapist | 10,000+ Course Students | 24M+ YouTube Views | Penguin Random House Author
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Build your full ERP toolkitMaster Your OCD covers cognitive defusion, humor techniques, and the complete ERP system, 67 videos, every subtype, all from home.
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