Lost in Speech: Depressive Rumination and the Dynamics of Inner Silence.
Dan Degerman, Jae Ryeong Sul
Inquiry November 14, 2025 DOI: 10.1080/0020174x.2025.2587214 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Depression Meditation Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Inner speech Philosophy of psychiatry Rumination Silence |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that depressive rumination involves a disruption in the capacity for inner silence, which explains the distress of rumination and the effectiveness of meditation-based therapies. |
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.
Comparable studies
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| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Psilocybin-assisted therapy of major depressive disorder using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a therapeutic frame | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Yale Manual for Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy of Depression (using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a Therapeutic Frame) | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Neuroinflammation and neuroprogression in depression: Effects of alternative drug treatments | 2022 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Improving cognitive functioning in major depressive disorder with psychedelics: A dimensional approach | 2021 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 7
- Silence, depression, and bodily doubt: toward a phenomenology of silence in psychopathology. Philosophical Psychology May 20, 2024
- A voice without a mouth no more: The neurobiology of language and consciousness. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews September 1, 2022
- Inner speech. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science March 1, 2021
- Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy as an augmentation treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy September 2017
- Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology Psychological Bulletin May 25, 2015
and 2 more in the library