It is probably both, but the info I have read on depression says depressed people think negative thoughts an average of 500 times a day while non-depressed people think them closer to 20 times a day. I am having trouble finding the study that said this but on average depressed people think negative thoughts more than non-depressed people.
I have also read a book called dealing with depression naturally that attempts to find all the potential causes of depression. The author shows that there are a myriad of non-cognitive causes of depression including but not limited to a variety of hormonal, neurochemical and nutrional abnormalities and deficiences, none of which are due to negative thinking but which, you’d assume, can lead to negative thinking if depressed people think negative thoughts 20x more than non-depressed people.
So is our outlook on life and ourselves due to our mood or is our mood due to our outlook? I assume its a mix, but I do not know to what degree. I know when I am depressed things that would not bother me when i’m not depressed really hurt me and cognitive therapy doesn’t seem to help. When i’m not depressed (like now) I do not care at all about the same things that would really wound me while i’m depressed. I assume its my mood that changes my outlook, and not the other way around. However I know that as I changed my outlook over time my overall mood increased too.
have there been studies on people who have the outlooks of anxious or depressed people (ie all or nothing thinking, self depricating views, lack of hope, etc) who are happy and anxiety free, or have there been studies on people who have tons of negative thoughts but who are happy?
What about positive feelings, are there studies on whether outlook is due to mood or visa verca on them? I assume not, there isn’t much research on positive emotions in modern medicine & psychology, but I’d assume the same would hold true.
Mood and outlook are two aspects of the same internal dialogue. Your mood is your report to yourself about how you feel now. Your outlook is your report (or assessment / projection) to yourself about how things are going to be in the future. ‘Future’ is a variable term, and can apply to the next few hours, days, weeks, months or years, depending on your preoccupations.
You can’t say definitively that either one causes the other. It may often be more accurate to say that both have their roots in common factors and aspects of what’s going in your life. Nonetheless, the two are always going to be related in some way.
If your Outlook (future) says that tomorrow, you’ll be throwing $2000 on a transmission, your may feel pretty shitty, depending on how it will impact your financial situation for many weeks to come. Even if you were fine before hand. Then your financial burdens starts to cross borders with old, past moods. Then it starts, and stays a while.
Or if your Mood (current) is reflecting on the negative thoughts about your insecurities that you’ve had your whole life, your Outlook will be shitty. Because all you ever see in the future is your insecurities.
In the long-run, mood is caused by outlook. Inititially - when a person first becomes depressed - outlook is caused by mood.
Many depressed individuals reinforce their mood by continuously justifying their negativity. Whenever something bad happens to them, it is another thing that gives them a reason to sustain their viewpoint.
In therapy, I employ a model of thoughts, mood and behaviors all influencing one another. It is nice because it makes sense for most people and provides a number of intervention points.
I can’t say for sure, but it does not seem that there are any unidirectional relationships between these constructs. A person’s thoughts can influence their mood and their behavior. Their mood can influence their thinking and their behavior. Their behavior can influence their mood and their thinking.
I agree with this part and that has been my experience, but there is also the physiological aspect of mood and outlook. Things like low testosterone levels, blood sugar abnormalities, certain vitamin deficiences, etc. can all affect mood which in turn can affect outlook. Changing your outlook (which is the goal of cognitive therapy) seems futile in these situations if your poor outlook is a side effect of your poor mood and your poor mood is a side effect of physiological problems.
sort of related. I read something about how marijuana smokers have a semi-psychotic outlook on life - which is normally associated with depression - yet, they suffer no more than the population, on average. “happy psychotic” is what the article called them.
I’m not sure what terms to search for, to answer your question about people with obsessive negative thinking, who are also happy. Myself, I am rarely sad… and very negative. I have learned to dissociate my negativity from my mood. Non-negative people are in denial
Nope, sure don’t. In fact, my memory of it is pretty vague, so I could be confusing things. I was probably high when I read it.
I do think it is true, though. Same applies to people who have use LSD or other hallucinogens many times. A lot of those folks have some seriously fringe beliefs, like a one person religion. Very mystical.
I suffer from chronic depression, and I also have very positive and affirming cognitive values.
I have to make a distinction between **feelings **of hopelessness or helplessness, and **believing **that I’m a hopeless and helpless individual. Those feelings are biochemical, and I just have to work through them, without allowing them to change my outlook.
It’s not in my power to directly change my feelings, but my conscious beliefs certainly are within my power, and aren’t controlled by my emotions. I can’t imagine having cognitive values that matched my depression. There’d be nothing to live for, which is definitely **not **the case with me.
