Scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles have discovered that experiencing depression can permanently change the way you view the world. Even after making progress in therapy, people begin to obsess over negative events in their lives. The results of the study were as follows: published At APA PsycNET.
Depression is a mental illness characterized by persistent low mood, lethargy, and impaired thinking.
In their study, scientists analyzed 44 studies involving 2,081 volunteers with major depressive disorder and 2,285 healthy people.
In the experiments conducted in the research, participants’ reactions to negative, positive or neutral stimuli were analyzed. Subjects were shown a happy, sad, or neutral human face or asked to respond to positive, negative, or neutral words by pressing a button.
Healthy participants were generally faster at responding to stimuli, regardless of stimulus type. Previously depressed subjects spent more time processing negative emotional stimuli than positive ones, compared with the control group.
This suggests that people recovering from a major depressive episode take longer to process negative information than those without a history of depression. This habit may increase the risk of recurrence of the disease.
The study authors suggest that this discovery could be a step in the development of new psychotherapy techniques aimed at improving the processing of positive information.
existed before named Habits to help avoid depression.