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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Design and Implementation of an fMRI Study Examining Thought Suppression in Young Women with, and At-risk, for Depression
Published on: May 19, 2015
Reflection, brooding, and suicidality: a preliminary study of different types of rumination in individuals with a
Catherine Crane1, Thorsten Barnhofer, J Mark G Williams
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. catherine.crane@psych.ox.ac.uk
Objective:
To examine the relationship between reflection, brooding, and suicidality in participants with a history of major depression.
Method:
Participants were divided into three groups - those who had never been suicidal (N=11), suicide ideators (N=11), and suicide attempters (N=10). Participants completed the Ruminative Responses Scale to explore scores on the brooding and reflection subscales in each group.
Results:
There was a significant interaction between groups and type of self-focused thinking: suicide attempters more strongly endorsed brooding than reflection, whilst non-suicidal, but previously depressed individuals showed the reverse trend. Suicidal and non-suicidal groups differed significantly in levels of reflection, but did not differ significantly in levels of brooding.
Conclusions:
Deficits in reflection appear to be linked to suicidality in major depression consistent with evidence of problem-solving deficits in these groups.
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