"Overthinking" or excessive thinking is a concept used to describe a recurring return to a given situation, excessive analysis of words, gestures, and reactions, searching for hidden meanings, and playing out various possible scenarios.

On the surface, this appears to be heightened cognitive activity. From a psychodynamic perspective, what is examined is not only the quantity of thoughts, but their function: what happens inside a person when thinking becomes a necessity, and what psychological tension it attempts to regulate. Not all excessive thinking has the same cause. It can be related to anxiety, perfectionism, chronic stress, loss, or current interpersonal relationships.

An important theoretical clarification is also necessary: "overthinking" is not a classical psychoanalytic term. In this text, the phenomenon is examined through a psychodynamic perspective, illustrating the ways in which a person experiences themselves and others. The psychodynamic focus is concerned not only with why a person thinks so much, but what thinking fulfills for them.

The Inner World as a World of Relationships

Object relations theory places relationships with others at the center of psychological development. Early experience gradually organizes itself into internal representations of the self and significant others, which subsequently participate in the way a person experiences closeness, distance, dependency, and separateness (Fairbairn, 1952). These internal representations are not simply accurate copies of real people from the past. They are emotionally charged psychological structures that can influence the way present relationships are perceived and interpreted.

When the internal sense of security is relatively stable, a person can more easily tolerate the absence of the other, distance, difference, and uncertainty. On the other hand, when early experience has been marked by unpredictability or insecurity, present ambiguity can acquire a much greater emotional weight. Thus, a situation that objectively contains little information can activate a significant amount of internal anxiety.

How Uncertainty Turns into Excessive Thinking

Imagine that someone close to you does not respond to a message. A flood of questions may arise: "Did something happen?", "Are they angry with me?", "Did I do something?", "Has something changed between us?".

From this point, thinking can gradually begin to serve a regulatory function. Uncertainty becomes a problem that must be solved through analysis. Instead of simply experiencing "I don't know," the psyche begins to generate hypotheses in order to defend against internal conflict and anxiety. Each new hypothesis temporarily creates a sense that the situation is more understandable and therefore more controllable. A cycle emerges: uncertainty → anxiety → analysis → temporary relief → new doubt. Here, excessive thinking becomes a paradox: the more a person attempts to achieve complete certainty through thinking, the more new possibilities for doubt they discover.

Relationships with Others – When Thinking Becomes an Attempt at Control and a Substitute for Security

Behind excessive thinking may lie the belief: "If I analyze enough, I will understand what is happening and will be able to control it." In relationships, however, there is always an area that cannot be fully known. A person cannot know with certainty what the other is thinking, how they will react, or how a relationship will develop.

The development of psychological resilience is linked to the experience of a sufficiently reliable environment, in which the capacity to tolerate absence, frustration, and temporary uncertainty gradually builds (Winnicott, 1965). In adulthood, a more stable internal sense of security allows for the toleration of disagreement, disappointment, and the absence of an immediate response. When this security is more fragile, small changes in the other's behavior can take on disproportionately great significance. Thinking may then be used to create a sense of security where security is not sufficiently accessible: "If I understand what is happening, I will be safe."

Relationship with the Self – What Lies Behind the Thoughts?

What matters is not only the representation of the other, but also the representation of the self. Behind the question "Why is he behaving this way?" may lie other, deeper questions: "What does this mean for me?", "Am I important enough?", "Will the other stay by my side?", "Can I be loved if I am not good enough?".

In this sense, excessive thinking may be connected not only to the need to understand the other's behavior, but also to an attempt to regulate one's own sense of worth, security, and belonging. Representations of the self and others are mutually connected elements of psychological life – the relationship with the other is not experienced separately from the way a person experiences themselves within that relationship (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983).

In this context, it is also important to consider the degree to which the representations of the self and the other are integrated into relatively cohesive and stable psychological images. Difficulties in integrating the positive and negative aspects of the self and the significant other can sustain a more split and unstable experience of relationships (Kernberg, 1976). With such an internal organization, the other's behavior can more easily be experienced as a sign of rejection, threat, or loss of connection, which intensifies the need for analysis and the search for a secure explanation.

The Inner Conflict: Closeness and Fear. From Emotion to Thought

At the root of excessive thinking may lie a conflict between the need for closeness and the fear of what closeness brings.

A person may simultaneously experience:

·  "I want to get closer." and "If I get closer, I can be hurt."

Or:

·  "I need the other." and "If I need them, I become vulnerable."

When such a conflict is difficult to experience directly, it can be transformed into mental activity. Instead of: "I am afraid of being rejected," the psyche begins to analyze every word, pause, reaction, and change in the other's behavior. In this way, thinking can allow a person to remain close to the problem without having to directly experience its emotional core.

In Bion's (1962) psychoanalytic theory, the capacity to transform raw emotional experience into thinkable and tolerable psychological experience is linked to the functioning of the alpha-function. When experience cannot be sufficiently processed, it may remain as a difficult-to-tolerate psychological tension that seeks a way to be managed or evacuated. From this perspective, excessive thinking can be regarded as an attempt at psychological processing, but in some cases also as a form of intellectualized retention of experience, in which a person thinks extensively about the emotion without actually experiencing and integrating it.

A person may spend hours analyzing: "Why did this affect me so much?", "Why did he say exactly that?", "How are others interpreting my reaction?", "Why can't I stop thinking about this?" – and at the same time remain far from a simpler experience: "I am afraid.", "I am hurting.", "I feel rejected.", "I need acceptance.".

Thinking is not a problem in itself. It is a necessary psychological process and an important tool for making sense of experience. The difficulty arises when analysis begins to systematically replace the experience of emotion – thinking can help us experience and make sense of emotion, but it can also keep us at a safe distance from it.

Overthinking, Rumination, and Analytical Thinking

Not all prolonged thinking constitutes overthinking.

Analytical thinking generally leads to better understanding, a solution, or action. It may involve complex analysis and continue for a long time without this indicating a psychological problem.

Rumination is characterized by the repetition of the same thought content without arriving at any substantially new understanding or solution.

In anxious excessive thinking, the focus is often on:

• preventing possible danger;

• reaching absolute certainty;

• analyzing the behavior of others;

• anticipating negative scenarios;

• repeatedly checking one's own actions;

• searching for the "correct" explanation for what has happened.

A useful question is: "What is my thinking trying to achieve?". If the goal is understanding and action, thinking serves an adaptive function. If the goal is to eliminate every possibility of uncertainty, it may already be functioning primarily as an attempt to control and cope with the anxiety of the unknown.

A Therapeutic Perspective

Overthinking is not simply "too many thoughts." Psychotherapeutic work with excessive thinking does not consist merely of attempting to stop a person from analyzing. The very effort to stop thinking through willpower can add yet another layer of control.

In the therapeutic process, the focus can shift from: "How can I know with certainty what the other's behavior means?" to: "What happens to me when I don't know?" – and the following can be explored:

• the emotion that underlies the thought process;

• the internal image of the self and the other;

• what the person is attempting to prevent or control;

• the meaning of uncertainty;

• recurring relational patterns;

• the connection between current experience and earlier experience.

The goal of psychotherapeutic work is not to eliminate thinking, but to expand the psychological capacity to recognize one's own internal behavioral patterns, to experience and tolerate one's emotions, and to build a more stable sense of self.

From Control to Tolerating Uncertainty

Psychological balance does not mean achieving a life without uncertainty. Rather, it is about developing the capacity to tolerate uncertainty without it automatically leading to anxious control. This includes the ability to remain calm when one does not know what the other is thinking or how a given situation will unfold.

A person can remain connected to themselves even when there is no certain answer.

References

Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning from experience. Heinemann.

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1952). Psychoanalytic studies of the personality. Tavistock Publications.

Greenberg, J. R., & Mitchell, S. A. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalytic theory. Harvard University Press.

Kernberg, O. F. (1976). Object-relations theory and clinical psychoanalysis. Jason Aronson.

Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 27, 99–110.

Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The maturational processes and the facilitating environment: Studies in the theory of emotional development. Hogarth Press.