Lost in speech: depressive rumination and the dynamics of inner silence
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper clarifies the experiential profile of depressive rumination, a form of repetitive and persistent negative thinking that is phenomenologically and aetiologically central in depression. Phenomenological analyses of depression have generally remained too high-level to account for this centrality. Drawing on first-person depression narratives and recent philosophy of psychiatry and psychology, we elucidate an underexplored phenomenological aspect of depressive rumination: a disruption in the capacity for inner silence. This disruption captures ruminating individuals' yearning for but inability to initiate and maintain inner silence. It also explains the distress involved in rumination and the effectiveness of therapies such as meditation.
Source: Inquiry
Authors: Dan Degerman, Jae Ryeong Sul
Institution: University of Bristol
Language: English
Topic: Mental Health and Psychiatry
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4416225146