Is acknowledging intrusive thoughts counterproductive to managing anxiety?

That's all part of acceptance. It's uncomfortable yes, but it's important to embrace that as well. My motto for the longest time was "embrace the suck". It's all a part of the process. Your brain is learning a new skill set. It's key to look at mental health like physical health. If you haven't ran a mile in years, you aren't going to run a 6 minute the first time. It's going to take conditioning. The more anxiety sensations you accept, while continuing to do things you enjoy and value, the quicker your brain will catch up. If you have setbacks, look at it as practice. The more you practice loving the anxiety the better you'll get at it.

I think ERP is a lot more ‘confrontational’ than thinking ‘maybe, maybe not’ in response to the replies. If they’re severe enough you need to actively confront them in a safe way. It doesn’t mean you won’t get a reoccurrence but for a lot of people it means in the future that they’re able to reply to the thoughts with ‘maybe, maybe not’ and not ruminate over what this means. I think anyway! Just my 2 cents.

The goal is to not care about the thought. Apply complete apathy. That's what ERP really is about. Habituation. Thing is you can just go live your life and have the same thing happen. In all actuality all thoughts are intrusive. Even the ones we may label as good thoughts. Me thinking about going fishing when I should be doing work is an intrusive thought. I just enjoy fishing so it's no big deal. Our brains love to solve problems. So the more we attempt to figure out what OCD wants us to solve the more it will throw that at us. If we choose not to engage and do something else like fishing. While uncomfortable it teaches the brain, hey....what is this person doing...they don't care about this anymore. I could be thinking about drowning the person I go fishing with. But I'm gonna keep fishing and have a good time regardless. What I gathered from all my therapy, all the books I've read to find a cure, was to get to recovery is. I need to live my life, thoughts and all.

You have to live by the saying, “maybe, maybe not.” Sometimes saying that works for people you it really means you need to accept the uncertainty of life and stay in the present moment. There’s absolutely NOTHING you can do to control or get rid of your OCD and intrusive thoughts. But you can learn not to let them bother you and let them play in the background dialed way down that you can barely hear the OCD radio station while you go about your daily life.

At one time, for me the mere thought that I was going crazy would send my heart & mind racing for an answer. I’d spend nights awake trying to convince myself that I’m not going crazy. I’m not sure when but I made a choice & said ok. If I’m going crazy…let’s go…F it!! What I’ve learned is I cannot control every thought that comes to mind but I can make a decision whether I want to react to it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not cured but I’m finding it easier to accept uncertainty. There are questions in life that inherently have no answers. And I’m cool with leaving them to a higher power. Hope this helps you.

The issue is ditching the anxiety physical symptoms that come with the thought. That's my biggest problem. The intense fear and sweating over a thought.