Rumination (psychology)

Rumination, in psychology, is the sustained focus on and repetition of negative thoughts and emotions. Researchers have proposed several models of the mechanism, emphasizing negative emotions and circumstances, discrepancies between a person's current and desired status, or negative themes of uncontrollability and harm within a person's own metacognitions. Rumination develops and maintains psychopathological conditions including anxiety, depression and other mental states. Treatments that specifically target ruminative patterns remain in early stages of development, but recent meta-analyses indicate that psychological interventions incorporating mindfulness can substantially reduce rumination symptoms. General dictionaries describe the underlying everyday sense of the word as thinking carefully and for a long period about something, or going over something in the mind repeatedly.