Rumination (psychology)
[3] According to multiple studies, rumination is a mechanism that develops and sustains psychopathological conditions such as anxiety, depression, and other negative mental disorders.
[10] Recently, RST has expanded the definition of rumination beyond depression to include passive and repetitive focus on the causes, consequences, and symptoms of one's distress in general.
[11][1] Specifically, the S-REF model defines rumination as "repetitive thoughts generated by attempts to cope with self-discrepancy that are directed primarily toward processing the content of self-referent information and not toward immediate goal-directed action.
[15][16] Rumination additionally has a tendency to magnify with an up-regulation of emotions in the body, thus beginning the downward-moving spiral of depression.
[3][11] From this understanding, GPT defines rumination as "the tendency to think recurrently about important, higher order goals that have not yet been attained" or towards which sufficient progress has not been made.
[22] The tendency to negatively ruminate is a stable constant over time and serves as a significant risk factor for clinical depression.
[8] There is also evidence that rumination is linked to general anxiety, post traumatic stress, binge drinking, eating disorders, and self-injurious behavior.
In other words, ruminating about problems was presumed to be a form of memory rehearsal which was believed to actually lengthen the experience of depression.
Some studies have observed a negative correlation with two executive functioning abilities, set-shifting and inhibition, but the magnitudes of those relationships are unclear.
[24][25] Another study observed only one relationship between rumination and one executive function, specifically the ability to discard past information from working memory.
[1] Some common thoughts that are characteristic of ruminative responses are questioning the well-being of oneself and focusing on the possible causes and consequences of one's depressive symptoms (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991).
[36] The 31-item Repetitive Thinking Questionnaire (RTQ) measures worry, rumination, and post-event processing with the purpose of controlling for effects associated with a psychological diagnosis or disorder.
[39] Recently, researchers have started to develop a validated measurement protocol to best assess rumination in a dynamic fashion using experience sampling methodology.
This difference in response style was proposed to explain the higher rates of depression in women compared to men.
[41] Research has supported the theory that women have a greater likelihood to ruminate than men, but the magnitude of this difference seems to be small.
The response styles theory (RST) suggests this may be due, to some extent, to higher rates of rumination in women.
In the meta-analysis, women showed statistically significant increases in levels of both brooding and reflection, supporting RST.
According to Pennebaker, healthy self-disclosure can reduce distress and rumination when it leads to greater insight and understanding about the source of one's problems.
Co-rumination is a process defined as "excessively discussing personal problems within a dyadic relationship",[46] a construct that is relatively understudied in both its negative and positive trade-offs.
[47] Rumination-focused cognitive behavior therapy (RFCBT) aims to teach patients to recognize when they begin to ruminate and ultimately re-frame the way they view themselves.
[50] Support for these interventions has come from a multitude of studies, suggesting that implementation of both individualized and group RFCBT has been correlated with lower rumination in adolescents and young adults, both with and without major depression or anxiety disorders.
The process of mindfulness based intervention is: (1) the interest in acceptance, (2) the defusion of thoughts and emotions, (3) the importance of being in the present moment, (4) self as context.
[48] This process includes practices like meditation, body scans, and other nonjudgmental methods, mainly focusing on breath and passing thoughts.
A study conducted by psychologists from the University of Liverpool suggests that dwelling on negative events that have occurred in one's life is the biggest predictor of depression and anxiety.
[50] Nolen-Hoeksema also suggests that rumination may, in addition to analysis of symptoms, causes, and consequences, contain negative themes like those in automatic thoughts.
