Lesson 2 of 6 · Why it holds itself in place
Going over it is not working on it
This is worth separating carefully, because people defend rumination as being responsible.
Problem solving has an end. You reach a decision, or you find there is nothing to decide, and you stop. Rumination has no end. It circles, it changes the wording, and it hands you back to the beginning.
The useful test is not what you are thinking about. It is whether the thinking terminates in something you then do.
That test is not ours. It comes out of the work that first separated a ruminative response to low mood from the other things people do with it, and found that the ruminative one predicted how long the episode lasted.
What the research says
Repetitive self focused thinking about why you feel bad prolongs the episode rather than resolving it. The honest limit is that this is a theoretical account with supporting evidence rather than a single decisive experiment.
Sets out response styles theory, in which repetitive self focused thinking about the causes and consequences of low mood prolongs and deepens the episode rather than resolving it. The honest limit is that this is an association observed over time rather than an experiment, so research links it rather than research proves it.
Nolen-Hoeksema S (1991). Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100(4), 569 to 582 doi