Rumination and Self-destructive Thoughts in People with Depression

Abstract

Increasing rates of suicide have peaked interest in how individuals with depression may view their environment differently and have abnormal thought processes compared to non-depressed individuals. In order to explore how depressive thought processes lead to completed suicide, this review of literature looks at research and theoretical explanations of rumination, self-destructive thoughts, and feelings of hopelessness. People with depression are more attentive to both their own and other people’s actions and have a strong desire for control. Rumination prevents effective problem solving and increases the duration of depressive symptoms. Highly self-aware individuals often attend to discrepancies between the real self and who they wish to be, which causes distress and overthinking about negative aspects of problems while neglecting the development of solutions. Suicide is one method of escaping the self when these discrepancies become salient and continual failure also leads to feelings of hopelessness. Positive distraction such as getting involved in hobbies as well as the promotion of optimistic and hopeful thoughts may help depressive ruminators refrain from negative thoughts and may ultimately help prevent suicide.

Regulating Rumination by Anger: Evidence for the Mutual Promotion and Counteraction (MPMC) Theory of Emotionality

“…One interesting result in Study 1 was that the anger group exhibited less sadness and tension than the joy group. This finding was unexpected and suggests that with respect to the regulation of rumination-related emotions, such as sadness and tension, anger induction may be more efficient than the positive reward or distraction advocated by previous studies ( Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991 ; Donaldson et al, 2007 ; Nolen-Hoeksema et al, 2008 ; Moore, 2015 ). Furthermore, this result appears to challenge the basic views of positive psychology, which focuses on the cultivation of an individual’s subjective well-being and emphasizes the importance of positive emotion in emotional regulation ( Sheldon and King, 2001 ; Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2014 ).…”

“…In Study 1, the sad, tense, and self-focus feelings in the three groups were decreased after the mood induction; this declining tendency may imply the possibility of a distraction effect, which, in general, has been recognized as an effective approach for emotional regulation by shifting one’s attention from current negative information to another unrelated activity to decrease the unpleasantness and increase healthy emotions ( Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991 ; Donaldson et al, 2007 ; Yoon and Joormann, 2012 ). In addition, the tense feeling after joy induction was significantly less than that of the neutral induction, which may be interpreted by the effects of a positive mood or distraction in relieving rumination-related negative emotion ( Nolen-Hoeksema et al, 2008 ; Moore, 2015 ). Most importantly, the sad and tense feelings of anger group were both lower than that of joy group and neutral mood group.…”