'Sticky thinking' hampers decisions in depression

I recently read a book called "Don't Believe Everything You Think" by Joseph Nguyen which tackles this problem directly through a bit of mindfulness and eastern philosophy. In the book, he starts by distinguishing between "thoughts" and "thinking" and outlines how/why he believes the latter ultimately leads to most self-inflicted human suffering.

He has some techniques in the book for trying to break the cycle of rumination, but ultimately it comes down to willpower and repetition. As someone going through/coming out of serious depression for the past month, even if I'm able to stop my own rumination, if its severe or overwhelming enough, it will likely come back very soon if not immediately. I think time and healthy distractions are great complements.

Isn't this just what cognitive behavioral therapy is but with different names?

Related: metacognition

It does sound similar. Throw in a few helping lines about understanding why you do the "thinking" and it might even become dialectical.

Here's a quick story. It's unrelated to depression but it's something related to asking yourself "are you sure?".

I once had stitches which had to be removed after about 2 weeks. It was the only time I've gotten stitches.

It's a weird experience which involves a fair bit of tugging and feeling things you've never felt before along with maybe a little blood.

The doctor told me to let him know if it hurt. After the first tug I said is it normal to feel pain?

Then he asked me if what I'm feeling is really pain or is it a sensation?

Then he did it a few more times and he was right. I wasn't feeling real pain.

I was feeling a combination of sensations I wasn't familiar with. Yes there was a bit of tugging, pressure and a little bit of pinching but I wouldn't register it as "actual pain". Maybe it was like a 1.5 out of 10 on a pain scale. A minor discomfort at most and completely manageable.

But even now, years later I sometimes think back to that experience in other contexts and ask myself "are you sure?" when evaluating situations or thought processes. It's not a lack of confidence, it's more about making sure I'm assessing things in a fair and reasonable way.

Yes, I believe so, or at least a subset of it. The author is not a therapist of any kind, I get the impression he was just a guy who wrote a book about how he overcame his personal struggles. This was off-handedly recommended to me by my therapist via text as she thought of me while reading it as I told her I was struggling with recurring thoughts, ruminations, anxiety, etc so that might lend some credence to it.

Also recommend "Feeling Good: Overcome Depression and Anxiety with Proven Techniques" by David Burns. Lots of good content, helped me a lot. Past the initial general chapters, there are some on specific things, such as dealing with trauma from difficult parents, which you can easily skip if they don't apply.

I dont think you understand the problem. And neither did I when a loved one suffered through something like this.

What you miss is that solutions like the one you suggest simply cannot be implemented by those that are suffering. Folks who have not encountered such a problem cant even understand it. "logical" or "reasoning" solutions do not work. What is required starts with empathy to slowly rewire the brain in those that are suffering.

There is a spectrum in sticky thinking and all of us fall somewhere in that spectrum.

But I like your idea, and those of us who are "normal" can use something like it to eliminate chains of worrisome thinking.

>"Don't Believe Everything You Think" by Joseph Nguyen

I was flabbergasted to hear this, because there's a german book with the very same title (albeit in german, of course) by the comedian Kurt Krömer about his own history of severe depression.

So I wondered who of them borrowed the other one's title, and it turns out both books were published in March 2022 only about two weeks apart. What a strange coincidence.