
Training in 'concrete thinking' can be self-help treatment for depression - 6ren
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111117202935.htm#.TsaYwil4AAg.reddit
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thebrokencube
I hope this isn't a stupid question, but how is this significantly different
from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? My understanding of CBT is that through
guided training you are able to take the automatic negative thoughts you have
and through introspection realize that they're not as devastating as you may
think they are, and over time and with practice you turn the automatic
negative thoughts into more realistic and optimistic thoughts.

EDIT: This is not to imply that this technique is bad; on the contrary I'm
very fascinated by the topic, and just want to make sure I understand it.

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deanproxy
I agree. It seems exactly like CBT to me. I have a pretty bad anxiety and
Obsessive disorder myself and have been in therapy and actively practicing CBT
and this article kind of confused me because it seemed so similar.

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AlexMuir
I am working on an App (web and phone-based) that aims to encourage this sort
of change in thinking with a focus on depression. If you, or someone you know,
are interested in being a Beta tester drop me an email - me@alexmuir.com -
it's a couple of months off being ready for testing.

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bostonvaulter2
I'm curious to know if you're worried about lawsuits at all.

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AlexMuir
Not really. If the company is successful enough to be worth suing then
brilliant. If the app does any harm to people (pretty unlikely I think) then a
lawsuit will be the least of my worries.

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morrow
Alex, I wouldn't be worried of the app harming someone so much as someone
hurting themselves and their family blaming it on you or your app in a search
for a cause of their loved one's suicide.

Add in a lawyer who smells a case, and you could wind up in legal trouble
quickly without actually harming anyone. Don't give up on it, just shield
yourself appropriately.

As far as waiting until you are successful to do this, there's really no way
for you to tell what mental state a purchaser of your app is in, and however
unlikely it may be, a tragic scenario similar to what I described above could
happen to one of your first users. I think in your case it would be wise to
protect yourself now instead of waiting.

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Swizec
As a person who used this technique on himself to get out of depression, I can
attest that it does in fact work. Anecdotal evidence be damned!

Takes a lot of will power though and does not work every single time since
it's the mental equivalent to solving the halting problem.

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alisey
This new research looks very much like Martin Seligman's theory of learned
helplessness developed 25 years ago.

His book 'Learned Optimism' is good.

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raganwald
Learned Optimism really helped me:

[https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-05-...](https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-05-01/optimism.md)

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adbge
Interesting, I'm going to check this book out now, thanks.

Your comments regarding the community were dead on. The ad hominem and
personal nature of so much, well, I hesitate to even call it criticism since
it's really just thinly veiled hate, has got to stop. It's absolutely a recipe
for creating unhappiness, for making people feel bad, and for turning off
potential contributors.

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rflrob
"A third received their usual treatment from their GP, plus CNT"

"This is the first demonstration that _just_ targeting thinking style can be
an effective means of tackling depression. " (emphasis mine)

While I don't doubt it can be effective, this study is only the first step
towards CNT being anything resembling a silver bullet.

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keeptrying
Anyone have a link to the actual paper?

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JamesBlair
<http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0033291711002480>

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chokma
Interesting to find a study that shows how changing your thinking may reduce
depression. Coming from the other side (happiness research) in a study from
2006, Sonjy Lyubomirsky et al showed, that talking or writing analytically
about negative events positively affected the overall happiness of the
participants even several weeks after the event.

<http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~sonja/papers/LSD2006.pdf>
<http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~sonja/papers.html>

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nkh
Can someone clarify what 'concrete thinking' actually is?

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JonnieCache
The opposite of abstract thinking. Only thinking about specific, real things
that actually exist and you have to deal with, rather than constantly thinking
in hypotheticals etc. It involves confronting the definite, physical,
"embodied" aspects of problematic experiences, rather than thinking too
abstractly about the causes and effects.

From the paper:

 _"In CNT, the training exercises involved patients’ identifying a recent
mildly to moderately upsetting difficulty and working through standardized
steps to facilitate concrete thinking: (i) using mental imagery to focus on
sensory details during the difficult event, noticing what is specific about
the event and the context in which it occurs; (ii) noticing the process and
sequence by which the difficult event unfolds (‘How did it happen?’),
including warning signs and actions that may have influenced its outcome;
(iii) focusing on how to move forward by specifying the particular steps and
behaviours to do next (Watkins, 2009; Watkins et al. 2009)."_

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alok-g
Seeking advice from HN members:

My spouse is under depression and has such symptoms. Yet, I do not think I'll
be able to convince her of undergoing such training. She refuses to believe
she is under depression, which is due to an ego issue from being a meditation
practitioner / counselor herself. Yet she has exactly the symptoms described
-- over-generalization of any small negative thing to ultimately falling into
an infinite loop about all the problems she has and shouting at me or my kid
for several hours straight. This happens about twice a week.

Could I be doing something that can help? Thanks for any advice.

Apologies if this does not belong to the HN forum.

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Yxven
Depression is caused by many things, but exercise helps most people suffering
from mild to moderate depression. I would try asking her if she'd help you
keep up your new jogging/workout regimen by doing it with you. If she's
already fairly active, I would try improving her nutrition. This explains it
better:
[http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/depression_disorder....](http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/depression_disorder.html)

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scottshea
I wonder how his would work with people on the Autism Spectrum? One issue they
have is with not handling abstract thinking yet they are quite prone to
depression.

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ggwicz
So, basically, stoicism.

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sunir
And Zen. A common solution to a common problem. Therefore plausible it will
work.

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ggwicz
Yeah. I wonder how the results would be if they were told it was "Zen" or
"Stoicism" or some type of set philosophy, ya know? Maybe people would attach
to it stronger like people attach to religion.

