That it should also play a significant role in paranoia is hardly surprising: after all, worry tempts us to give houseroom to the most implausible and distressing ideas.
Distraction: Keep your thoughts from turning to distressing ideas by filling your life with distractions.
"I think abuse, especially on this scale, is subconsciously too distressing an idea for people to engage with," says Lambert. "People don't want to think that it's true and that can translate as 'I don't believe you'.
This comparison raises a distressing thought.
"There is something very distressing about the idea of the unused resource," said Margaret Anne Doody, a University of Notre Dame literature professor, about characters like Isabella and Kristin Yancey, who decline to make themselves sexually available to male suitors.
Most distressing is the idea that being digital and connected is a good in itself -- that the quality of the content hardly matters, and that merely exposing people to cultural content is the same thing as learning.
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On the issue of eurobonds, Mrs Merkel called the idea "extraordinarily distressing".
It's distressing enough to see ideas like these poke their way into mainstream discourse.
Suicidal ideas are distressing and dangerous, and therefore an important target for treatment.
