Hanging On and Letting Go

Hanging On and Letting Go: Understanding the Onset, Progression, and Remission of Depression presents a complementary rather than a competing theory of depression, which will interest a wide spectrum of practicing psychotherapists, researchers studying depression, and personality and social psychologists interested in the more general issues of motivation and the self. While many contemporary theories are derived from fragmentary often unsystematic assumptions about human behavior, the theory presented in this book looks at the whole human being before mapping out the various manifestations of depression, its causes, its development and its treatment. An integrated and substantial conception of self-awareness and self-regulatory processes constitutes the framework which helps to explain depression-related phenomena. The authors proceed to posit vulnerability factors that predict depression in those who experience loss, and they scrutinize spontaneous remission of depression, which occurs more frequently than researchers generally assume. This book makes an important contribution to the battle against the suffering that depression brings on.

1. Introduction and Overview.- The Functions of Theory.- Research Strategies for Studying Depression.- Our General Theoretical Approach.- The Goals of This Book.- Organizational Plan for the Book.- 2. Self-Focused Attention and Self-Regulation.- Theories of Self-Awareness Processes.- Empirical Evidence Concerning the Consequences of Self-Focused Attention.- Conclusion.- 3. An Integrative Perspective on Self-Awareness and Self-Regulation.- The Adaptive Value of Self-Focused Attention.- When Do People Self-Focus?.- Discrepancy Reduction.- Time Lags and Planning for Future Discrepancy Reduction.- Defensive Processes to Facilitate Disengagement.- Conclusion.- 4. The Self-Esteem Motive: Pathways to Equanimity.- A Terror Management Theory of Self-Esteem.- Consensual Validation of the Anxiety-Buffer.- Terror Management, Self-Awareness, and Self-Regulation.- Terror Management and the Hierarchy of Standards.- Implications for Understanding Self-Regulation.- Summary.- 5. Self-Regulatory Perseveration and the Onset of Depression.- Self-Regulatory Perseveration.- Determinants of Self-Regulatory Perseveration.- Summary.- A Note on Cognitive Concomitants of Depression.- 6. Consequences of Self-Regulatory Perseveration: The Depressive Spiral.- Affect.- Attributions.- Access to Self-Referent Information.- Motivation and Performance.- Self-Esteem.- Other Aspects of Depression.- The Emergence of a Negative Self-Image.- 7. The Depressive Self-Focusing Style.- Depressive Self-Focusing Tendencies.- Evidence for a Depressive Self-Focusing Style.- Consequences of a Depressive Self-Focusing Style.- From Self-Regulatory Perseveration to the Depressive Self-Focusing Style.- The Functions of a Negative Self-Image.- The Tyranny of the Depressive Self-Image.- 8. The Positive Spiral of Recovery: Spontaneous Remission and Treatment.- The Positive Spiral of Recovery.- Spontaneous Remission.- Factors That Inhibit and Facilitate Spontaneous Remission.- Suicide.- Psychotherapy for Depression.- Two Strategies to Facilitate Disengagement and Reinvestment.- Reducing Vulnerability to Relapse: Expanding the Basis for Self-Esteem.- Prevention of Initial Episodes of Depression.- Conclusion.- 9. Final Theoretical and Empirical Issues.- Putting the Theory into Context.- Remaining Theoretical Issues.- The Specific Content of Self-Regulatory Perseveration and Upward Reverberation.- Directions for Future Research.- Conclusion.- References.