# Getting Depressed about Depression: Ruminative vs. Experiential Self Focus



## David Baxter PhD (Dec 22, 2008)

Getting Depressed about Depression: Ruminative vs. Experiential Self Focus
By Jody Ribton, _Liminality Blog_ 
December 21, 2008 

One of the major cognitive factors in prolonging depression is ruminative (or "analytical") self focus. It's a trap that's difficult to avoid - most people who recognize that they suffer from depression will start asking themselves questions like "Why can't I just snap out of it?", "Why do I feel this way?", or, "What's wrong with me?". More often than not this line of questioning makes matters worse. Either you end up feeling frustrated that you can't figure out what's wrong with you, or you reach the conclusion that you are the problem. This then makes you more depressed, compounding your feelings of helplessness, creating a feedback loop.

This is by no means a new discovery, the dangers of rumination have been recognized by psychologists for decades. Rational-Emotive Therapy (a form of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy) terms this a "secondary disturbance", i.e. getting depressed about your depression, or getting angry about being angry. To quote Albert Ellis, founder of RET:

_Because of their self-consciousness and their ability to think about their thinking, they can very easily disturb themselves about their disturbances and can also disturb themselves about their ineffective attempts to overcome their emotional disturbances." (Ellis, 2003)_​Conversely, it's common to hear phrases like "get in touch with your feelings" bandied about, which at first blush seems to promote the very kind of thinking that Ellis suggests that we should avoid. This is the central thesis of Rogerian (or "Client Centered") therapy - that we should try to pin down exactly what it is that we are feeling. There is a subtle, but very important, distinction between the experiential self-focus encouraged by Rogers and the ruminative self focus discouraged by Ellis. Ruminative focus involves questions like "Why do I feel this way?", whereas experiential focus encourages us to question "How do I feel?".

While this distinction has been tacitly acknowledged by psychologists for at least four decades, it's only very recently that studies have been undertaken to prove that there is actually a difference. Results have been mixed. Some studies (Hunt, 1998; Lepore, 1997, as cited in Williams and Moulds, 2007) have found that expressive writing tasks can lead to substantial improvements in mood after negative events, which seems to support the hypothesis that experiential processing can be beneficial. Watkins and Teasdale (2004) found that inducing depressed participants to focus on themselves in an analytical (ruminative) manner increased their tendency to retrieve over-general autobiographical memories (a core feature of maladaptive cognitive processing (Williams et. al., 2007, as cited in Williams and Moulds, 2007)), whereas encouraging experiential processing reduced over-general memory.

The studies that find no correlation between ruminative processing and depression tend to be those that focus on non-personal problems; see, for example, Williams & Moulds (2007). They attempted to replicate the findings of Watkins and Teasdale by showing a group of studies a sad clip from the movie _The Shawshank Redemption_ and then measuring the incidence of intrusive memories when students where asked to analytically reflect on the clip, or experientially reflect on how the clip made them feel. They found no difference between the ruminative group, the experiential group, and controls. However, the authors themselves admit that a probable flaw in the study is that the clip was not sufficient to induce self-referential intrusive memories.

On the whole, the research seems to support the distinction between ruminative and analytical processing. Although it's unlikely to change therapy in any radical way, it does reaffirm many of the central theses of CBT and Humanistic therapy, and, for sufferers of depression, it does serve as a warning not to fall into the trap of berating and questioning yourself. Rather attempt to non-judgmentally identify your feelings, as encouraged by Humanistic and Existential psychology, and perhaps take a stab and expressive writing or keeping some kind of mood diary. Many sufferers report that it's helped them.

*References:*
Albert Ellis (2003). EARLY THEORIES AND PRACTICES OF RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY AND HOW THEY HAVE BEEN AUGMENTED AND REVISED DURING THE LAST THREE DECADES. _Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy_, 21 

Alishia Williams, Michelle Moulds (2007). The Impact of Ruminative Processing on the Development of Intrusive Memories. _Behaviour Change_, 24 

E.D. Watkins, J.D. Teasdale (2004). Adaptive and maladaptive self-focus in depression. _Journal of Affective Disorders_, (82)


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## thephoenix (Dec 27, 2008)

I found this article very interesting. One of the things that I know is a issue for me is constantly trying to evaluate my mood or thoughts. When I'm feeling reasonably well, its almost as if I have a road block in my mind that says 'don't do that, its unhelpful and won't make you feel better.', but when I'm feeling low, that road block is absent and my self analysis can cause me a lot of problems and make me feel worse.

Although I'm still doing it and struggling along, I've found Eckhart Tolle's _The Power of Now_ and a book entitled _The Mindful Way Through Depression_ to help me try to cope with these harmful thinking patterns.

I'm actually going to register in a meditation course starting in the new year to try and help me gain more control over my mind and curtail unhelpful thinking.


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## Daniel (Dec 31, 2008)

thephoenix said:


> _The Mindful Way Through Depression_



I am going to finally get that book.  It has been on my "to do" list for months now


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## FarmerSteve (Jan 3, 2009)

That was really interesting. I definitely go through that...didn't even notice the consequences.


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## amastie (Jan 4, 2009)

thephoenix said:


> ...I've found Eckhart Tolle's _The Power of Now_ and a book entitled _The Mindful Way Through Depression_ to help me try to cope with these harmful thinking patterns.
> ...


I agree that this is a very interesting article.  I also like Eckhart Tolle for picking me up.  Haven't heard of the other book.  Must look it up.
Thanks


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## Daniel (Jul 20, 2011)

Depression: Your Elusive Secondary Disturbance - Psychology Today

Do you get upset about being upset? Do you feel: guilty about getting angry at a loved one, anxious about being embarrassed in front of an audience, depressed about experiencing ever-increasing panic attacks or having life-long depression? If so, you have experienced secondary disturbance.

Getting upset (the secondary disturbance) about initially having been upset (the primary disturbance) tends to be both pervasive and elusive. The primary disturbance occurs (or is anticipated to occur) first, then comes secondary disturbance, since chronologically it occurs second.

Therapists may fail to recognize this secondary disturbance in their clients since it's not anchored in a concrete, external event. In fact, Sigmund Freud mislabeled it as "free-floating." It is, rather, directly tied to irrational thinking...

To have the benefits and pleasures of living it's necessary to have the displeasures, including depression. Why not use this situation therapeutically as a golden opportunity to practice viewing my depression realistically as just a great hassle, never a horror? I'll keep pushing, and keep reminding myself to keep pushing!...

---------- Post added at 02:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:56 PM ----------

Related book excerpts:

http://forum.psychlinks.ca/acceptan...rom-the-happiness-trap-and-act-with-love.html

Secondary Disturbance: Getting Upset About Being Upset

http://forum.psychlinks.ca/resource...-i-go-again-why-unhappiness-won-t-let-go.html

http://forum.psychlinks.ca/anxiety-and-stress/26670-changing-your-relationship-with-anxiety.html


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## Daniel (Dec 10, 2011)

The Problem of Empty: Constructing Psychological Structure 
by Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D. 
? 2001, Retrieved December 10, 2011
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...Believing  that it is possible to be exempt from unavoidable human suffering   they become angry at themselves for falling prey to aversive feelings.  This anger (missed expectations of fantasized unrealistic   powers) is turned in and experienced as depression.   

The  frustration about   frustration and an accompanying depression about depression generates a  fear of fear and an anxiety about anxiety. This process   swarms into a whirling mass of hysteria and despair, culminating in a  despair about despair.{The next step is suicidal ideation or   actually attempting it.} Unless and until the therapist/counselor {or  someone} can objectify this process and express it in a way that   the patient can resonate to it, the patient is doomed to live a life of  basic insecurity as if on an eternal runaway roller coaster ride...

Therefore, the key task for the patient, is not how to avoid being   frustrated, but:

(1) to learn how to acknowledge the inevitable reality of some frustration,

 (2) learn to tolerate it, and

(3) learn how to use it as a jumping off point for creative problem solving.   

In challenging these primary first erroneous assumptions of the patient - the therapist: 

 (1) resonates with what is experienced as most pressing;

(2)  gives the patient 'food for thought' that will be experienced by him as  something solid that he can 'sink his teeth into' and 

 (3) once digested can begin to feel significantly better - experiencing  ego mastery. In sum: the patient learns how to move from reactivity to  acting from within.   

The  therapist can explore   the patient's predictable frustration with the experience of frustration  (the frustration of frustration). The therapist might   explain that one result of having never learned to bear frustration,  directly leading to his incohesive self experienced as painful   emptiness, is that that patient is forever doomed to live a life of  reactivity to inner and outer stimuli.   

If  the stimuli are   perceived as tolerable there will be no problem. If they are perceived  as aversive the patient will automatically try to run away   by literally leaving the scene, denying, isolating, splitting and so  forth. Such people are ill equipped to obtain and sustain adult   gratification as they tend to cut and run from commitments as soon as  they sense an intolerable degree of psychic pain.   

The  counselor/therapist   may explain that what the patient may lose in giving up the illusion of  perfection, (eternal oceanic bliss) on the one hand and a sense   of heightened intensity on the other is, that he will more than make up  for it in experiencing, for the first time in his life, a sense   of authentic ego mastery {experienced as feeling in control.}


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## Daniel (Jan 4, 2012)

Response styles to depressed mood affect the long-term course of psychosocial functioning in depressed patients
14 November 2011

...Given that response styles to depressed mood appear not only to affect  the course of depressive symptoms but also future psychosocial outcomes,  it is of particular relevance to address these coping styles in  psychological therapies for depression and high-risk groups...


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