INTERRUPTING IRONIC PROCESSES

Research on ironic mental control processes makes the underappreciated point that attempts to solve problems sometimes make them worse. Soci al scientists now know much about what ironic processes look like, les s about why they occur and too little about how to change them. Featur es of the exacerbation process itself suggest parsimonious approaches to treatment based on interrupting the ''solutions'' that keep ironic mental processes going (e.g., compliance-based paradoxical interventio n). Extending Wegner's explication of ironic intrapersonal (mental) pr ocesses, we propose that ironic interpersonal (social) processes also maintain many human problems and may be more accessible to interventio n. Treatment development in this area will benefit from attending more to how, problems persist than to how they originate, and from targeti ng ironic cycles that occur between people as well as within them.