Rumination (psychology)

Pondering is a form of reflection in which the thoughts revolve around several themes, or a specific problem without arriving at a solution. Strictly speaking, in clinical psychology and psychopathology in this case, a distinction between past-related and future- related issues as brooding worries respectively. Both are usually accompanied by negative emotions, with pondering with more depressive, worried with rather anxious feelings accompanied.

When pondering often involve abstract, inconcrete and vague topics: negative occupied philosophical or pseudo- philosophical questions, a conflict or a problem that seems to be no solution exists. A simple, obvious solution is doubted, not wanted in the brooding process by definition; a choice between a variety of solutions is perceived as difficult, spasmodic search for solutions to prevent the solution. Man can be trapped in his thoughts circles and find a way out, with sustained ensure full brooding is a sign of disease. Preferred topics of pondering relating to decisions, conflicts, own performance, suspected assessment of oneself by others, future, past, or the meaning of life.

Brooding is a search into the void, which continues despite the obvious solutions.

Distinction between normal and pathological brooding behavior

When people are in conflict, stress, or crisis situations, brooding and caring thoughts are understandable and normal. Also, there are dimensional differences between people with respect to their tendency to this circular and concatenated thought processes. Decisive factor in the question of whether this is still happening in the healthy range, is the perceived suffering and limitation experienced in everyday experience. Pathological brooding, so brooding and / or concerns with clinical significance, first occurs frequently and also persistent. Within a major depressive episode can give people for hours several times daily paralyze almost ruminative thoughts. People with generalized anxiety disorder, whose main feature are multiple concerns, face similar. Pathological brooding also often begins without external cause and is thereby experienced as less controllable and as aversive. Frequently keeps pondering from also from sleep and can affect the health and indirectly significantly. The Zeitintensivität indirectly leads to health problems, since positive activities are not performed and tasks and problems can not be addressed. By the latter there is an intensification of pondering and thus a vicious circle. Excessive rumination can also lead to a temporary limitation of cognitive abilities such as concentration, memory retention and memory.

Language History

Pondering is " to dig Iterativbildung " one and refers in this etymological meaning to a " tireless self- in - the - depth - Preliminary work". In the romance that covered by the so-called "Mode of Nachgrübelns " as a kind of profundity to the nature mysteries or the depth of one's mind, and even Walter Benjamin spoke of the " wealth age musings ". The actual pathologizing of pondering, however, begins with Wilhelm Griesinger, who defined the brooding after Richard von Krafft -Ebing as " obsession in question form." In colloquial language brooding is now used also in the sense of tinkering, Dice, puzzles, or musing, with the provision to do this with the free will decision. Brooding is in colloquial easily confused with processes that correspond to the brainstorming.

Profit by avoiding

In clinical psychology rumination and worry are first principle and originally understood as a problem-solving tests, which are applied dysfunctional. For example, forward- caring thoughts lead to action preliminary results and thus prevent dangers. The unpleasant By thinking of negative past situations can lead to error prevention and correction of their own behavior in the future. However, this applies only if the thoughts lead to results, which is not the case with the brooding. The emotion- regulative aspects of rumination were first described by Borkovec et al. (1983 ) have demonstrated. Within the newer therapy research, these approaches are developed and increasingly gathered evidence which point to the maintaining conditions of pondering, firstly in a short-term decrease of strong aversive emotions like inferiority experience, fears and uncertainty and brooding so far as the emotional processing dampen ( negative reinforcement ). Second, the protective character of pondering before sharply increasing aversive emotions in favor of long-term consistently high aversive emotions is investigated. Within a learning model can be as explains why pathological brooding, despite the accompanying unpleasant feelings persist as behavior remains, even though at fairly high emotional cost.

Rumination as a form of indecisiveness, postponing, Self - mission creep, to massive psychological resistances can derail good intentions, plans and life changing projects. These resistors often include an unconscious profit, are part of psychological mechanisms, as they left in the dark as to whether the real solutions would have made the people happy. With the action- avoidant brooding, man may save before the sobering experience of failure, or insight, but not to be so talented or intelligent as desired.

Psychopathology

In the psychopathology can get endless pondering the significance of a main symptom, eg in depression. Tendency to brood, the ability to make decisions while severely limiting the thoughts it usually revolve around the themes of hopelessness, feelings of inferiority and self-reproach and affect normal capacity.

The main feature for the diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (ICD -10: F41.1 ) with a lifetime prevalence of about 4-5 percent also is sorgendes brooding in almost all areas of life such as their own health and that of loved ones, work, environment, politics, disasters or finance.

Obsessive brooding is OCD diagnosed with ICD -10: F42.0 " Predominantly obsessional thoughts or obsessive brooding " before and can be " mixed obsessional thoughts and actions " in OCD with a diagnosis of F42.2 are available. Brooding may take the form of compulsive ideas, pictorial representations or forced pulses. For the people concerned, these obsessive thoughts are often agonizing and run in a chain of endless considerations and unabwägbarer alternatives. This is accompanied by the inability to make simple, necessary for daily life decisions.

Gruebel constraints and depression are closely linked, hence the obsessive brooding is only to be understood as obsessive compulsive disorder when it occurs outside of a depressive episode.

Therapy

The importance of the phenomenon of pondering is increasingly seen in therapy research as trouble -wide symptom whose treatment can be set as a goal of therapy within an optimized emotion regulation beyond the modern disorder-specific treatment manuals.

Possible treatment strategies for this purpose, inter alia, symptom- specific psychoeducation, problem solving training, relaxation techniques, mindfulness- based approaches (eg, Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy ) to increase the tolerance for aversive emotions, cognitive restructuring to correct dysfunctional metacognition about the brooding, worried confrontations in sensu (z. B. ( pictorial ) to -end thinking).