Lost in Thought: Rumination from Therapeutic and Buddhist Perspectives

Introduction

Rumination may be defined as a tendency to become involuntarily caught in cycles of repetitive, negatively valenced thought. It is not merely a by-product of distress; it is also a transdiagnostic process implicated in the onset and maintenance of multiple psychological disorders. Understanding its mechanisms supports more precise formulation and interventions that address the ruminative process itself, rather than only its symptomatic consequences. The Buddhist tradition also offers a rich practical literature on concentration and disengagement from proliferating thought, together with a wide range of methods for cultivating these capacities.

In this article, we will present current psychological research on the subject and examine convergences between Buddhist approaches to rumination and those developed in contemporary psychology. The Buddhist tradition contributes a diverse body of practices developed through centuries of direct engagement with these processes, which can be of great benefit to people struggling with rumination. Drawing from this tradition, we will propose and detail meditation exercises that may broaden the existing therapeutic repertoire.

“You spin my head right round”: Rumination and Mental Health

Rumination is a phenomenon familiar to many of us, both from the therapy room and our personal lives. Familiar examples of ruminative states include tossing and turning in bed with worries the night before an important day at work, being unable to stop revisiting a single sentence one has spoken, endless and fruitless analysis of a conversation with a friend, or being swept away in an incessant storm of self-criticism over a minor event. In all these examples, the person becomes absorbed in recurring thoughts, scenarios, and images that seem to run on an endless loop.

Sometimes, extensive thinking is a productive process of planning, problem-solving, and processing experiences, but often, thoughts do not lead to real solutions and become repetitive, passive, difficult to control, and negatively biased. This tendency becomes a source of suffering, distorts perception, and may disrupt functioning.

Rumination (literally: chewing the cud) is defined as circular thinking about one or more negative topics, experienced as involuntary and difficult to interrupt. It is characterized by repetition and persistence, sometimes for hours, days, or even weeks; difficulty in control; an experience of intrusive thoughts that are hard to distract from; and negative content such as preoccupation with mistakes, disappointments, future threats, or self-criticism. A term similar to rumination is worry, which is defined as a chain of negative thoughts and images focusing on potential future threats and negative “what if” scenarios. Although worry tends to focus on the future and rumination on the past, studies show that both forms share similar core processes, and therefore, for the purpose of this article, we will refer to worries as a form of rumination (Moberly & Watkins, 2008; Watkins, 2008).

The Importance of the Problem: Rumination as a Transdiagnostic Process

Rumination is a common, normal, and sometimes even useful response that is not limited to extreme situations or people with psychological diagnoses. Most of us experience rumination following loss or an effort to interpret or solve challenging situations. In its harmful form, rumination can severely impair quality of life. Understanding the phenomenon and ways to treat it is of great clinical importance, as it appears in a wide range of mental disorders and is considered a key factor in them.

Research evidence points to a strong link between rumination and many forms of psychological distress and a range of diagnoses, including depression (as a predictor, mediator, and maintaining factor of symptoms), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) where chronic worry is actually a form of rumination, PTSD (repetitive and intrusive thoughts concerning traumatic events), OCD (partial similarity to obsessions, mainly in the components of circular thinking), eating disorders, insomnia, psychosis, and more. Rumination can develop into an automatic habit, triggered in stressful situations and without conscious intent. It impairs memory, concentration, and problem-solving, increases emotional distress, and hinders mental recovery (Ehring & Watkins, 2008).

In many cases, rumination is a central component of mental distress, and therefore there is a need to develop targeted interventions that can alleviate symptoms and strengthen the effectiveness of psychological care. To this end, this article relies on the book and research of Watkins (2016), which are focused on the phenomenon. In the article, we will present interventions drawn from contemporary psychological practice, and in addition, we will suggest interventions from Buddhist traditions, which we believe may be particularly useful in working with rumination.

Furthermore, we will address the common ground between the rumination-focused CBT approach and the Buddhist practice also known as “Mindfulness.” In both approaches, there is an emphasis on investigating and understanding the mental mechanisms that trigger different thought and emotional patterns. Additionally, both approaches emphasize focusing on connecting to the experience, which may weaken the tendency toward rumination and help patients adopt alternative ways of acting. Consequently, we will attempt to show that these practices and the vast experience behind them have clinical and theoretical relevance for treating the tendency toward rumination.

Mechanisms of Rumination: Why Do We Get “Stuck”?

Rumination is rarely deliberate and often unfolds outside conscious awareness. It is mostly the product of psychological mechanisms and well-established response habits. For example, rumination may be a tendency that developed in childhood as a result of critical parental figures, or arise from a lack of more effective coping tools. Understanding these mechanisms is essential for changing thought patterns. Now, we will describe some of the common mechanisms linked to rumination (Watkins & Roberts, 2020; Watkins, 2016):

• Striving for clarity and control: Many use rumination to understand distressing events. Repeating questions like: “Why did this happen” or “What does this mean about me.” This style of thinking creates an illusion of control or understanding, but in practice, it does not lead to solutions and creates stagnation.
• Fear of negative self-perception: Some use rumination out of fear and to avoid an unwanted self-perception. For example, ruminating again and again on instances where they perceived their behavior as too controlling or dominant, out of a desire not to be perceived as arrogant by themselves and others. Likewise, rumination on social situations is sometimes used as preparation for possible situations, or as protection against the possibility of criticism. Sometimes, it is used to justify high standards or anger toward others.
• Risk avoidance: Instead of dealing with the possibility of failure or rejection, some tend to ruminate and plan again and again, out of the belief that “only if I think about it enough, will I be ready.” This approach reinforces and fixes the rumination, leading to paralysis.
• Attempting to control emotions: Rumination may serve as a distraction from negative emotions, or as an attempt to change them, but in practice, it may worsen them and narrow the range of emotional experience.
• Gaps between ideal and reality: When a patient holds rigid, unrealistic, or unattainable goals, rumination serves as a coping mechanism for the distress caused by this. In the long run, rumination reinforces a negative self-image.

“Prapañca”: The Buddhist Conceptualization of Rumination

At the base of the Buddhist tradition lies the aspiration for liberation from suffering. Liberation is obtained by cultivating insights into the mind through observation and learning. Among other things, this investigation includes continuous and sustained focus on subtle mental phenomena, observing the appearance and disappearance of thoughts, and witnessing hidden tendencies. Already in the Buddha’s first sermon, he points to concentration as a basic skill to be cultivated on the path to liberation from suffering. Since that sermon, millions of practitioners over thousands of years and in diverse cultures have worked to practically cultivate concentration skills, among other things by being aware of thoughts and the tendency to be swept away by them.

There is a similarity between the use of the term “Prapañca” in the canonical Buddhist texts and the way we understand rumination as a contemporary psychological term. The term “Prapañca” has been translated as mental proliferation, complication, exaggeration, distortion, diffusion, obsession, deception, or perversion. In the Honeyball Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 18, translated by Paññānando Bhikkhu), the mental dynamic is described in a way very similar to rumination:

“Whatever he feels, that he perceives; whatever he perceives, that he thinks about; whatever he thinks about, that he imagines; because of what he imagines, imagined perceptions and ideas overwhelm the person in relation to things that the door of consciousness might know in the past, future, and present.”

The text describes here the reactive process that leads to a downward spiral. Contact with one of the six senses (in Buddhist psychology, consciousness is a sense like the five senses in the West) produces perception, perception produces thought, and one thought produces more and more thoughts. The whole process is described as passive, occurring without the practitioner’s control or awareness. The driving force for the process is “clinging,” and in order to stop it, one must let go of it.

In the Discourse on the Two Kinds of Thought (Majjhima Nikāya 19:6, translated by Bodhi & Ñāṇamoli, 1995), the Buddha instructed his disciples to observe their thoughts and understand which are useful and which are not. The sermon teaches that discerning a thought and being aware of its nature and consequences leads to calming and changing thought patterns.

Inspired by these and other instructions, a developed culture of practical practice was created. Over thousands of years, practitioners throughout the Buddhist world have developed diverse methods that were documented and written down, and continue to serve as a source of knowledge for dealing with rumination. In recent decades, these methods have reached the West, and further development has occurred in the technique and its adaptation to the modern Western practitioner.

Convergences in Therapeutic Practice

In using the term Prapañca, it can be seen that in Buddhism there is a reference to phenomena that can be understood as rumination, alongside ways of working with these phenomena. Now, we will present the common ground between the ways of working suggested by Buddhism and the methods and principles coming from streams in modern psychology, and in particular from the CBT approach.

Monitoring

Both in CBT interventions and in mindfulness practice, the first step in dealing with rumination is increasing awareness of its patterns. Systematic monitoring of the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors related to rumination allows one to notice the phenomenon and stop it before it intensifies and becomes a compulsive thought cycle that is difficult to break.

In many Buddhist practices, one observes the process of the appearance and disappearance of thoughts with an emphasis on the impermanence of the phenomenon, and not necessarily on their content. The rationale of the practice is that clinging to a thought causes additional thoughts and emotions to appear, as opposed to awareness of the thought as a thought only, which allows one not to cling to its content. Thus, for example, in the “mental labeling” practice that we will present later.

Training in “Flow” States

“Flow” states in modern psychological literature are described as states in which a person is immersed in a certain activity and experiences feelings of energy and focus. This state is consistently linked to improvement in mood and improved performance in a variety of fields. Training in “flow” states is also a way of coping common to CBT and Buddhist practice.

In CBT interventions, the strategy is breaking the mental vicious cycle by leading the patient to a state of flow in the activity they are engaged in. This approach is based on an understanding of the continuum between two opposing states of consciousness: the ruminative state where a person is in self-judgment and increased criticality, as opposed to a flow state where a merger between action and awareness occurs.

From a psychological perspective, the use of flow states is related to the essential difference between these states and a state of ruminative thoughts. Unlike a state of flow, rumination is characterized by an internal system of “running commentary,” maintaining a kind of constant dialogue of comparisons, judgment, and evaluations. This state creates a mental bubble that disconnects the person from their environment and from direct experience, impairs the possibility of enjoying activity, and causes a significant decrease in motivation. Focusing on results, successes, failures, and avoiding mistakes creates anxiety and tension that paralyze the joy of simple action. When rumination accompanies activity, it turns the experience of the moment into a kind of internal battlefield instead of a source of pleasure and reinforcement (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010 in Watkins 2016).

From the Buddhist perspective, flow states or high concentration constitute a central tool in many Buddhist practices, for the purposes of calming the mind and investigating it. In the Buddhist tradition, a concentrated mind is attributed with characteristics of flexibility, clarity, pleasure, and quiet. Beyond the clear value of a quiet mind, concentration states are used to observe the processes of the mind efficiently. From within them, the concentrated practitioner is able to investigate the causes of stress and quiet them.

During a CBT practice focused on developing flow skills, an identification of actions that trigger a sense of flow is performed while relating to experiences associated with memories, images, and thoughts that were present in those moments – emotions, body posture, sensory experience, behavior, and sense of competence. The goal of the exercise is to encourage daily activities that have the potential to trigger emotional and experiential involvement in action, ones that are likely to cause the patient to naturally sink into them and take them out of the judgmental processing pattern characteristic of rumination. This is with the goal of developing abilities to proactively create a flow experience and use it as an active and available tool for cutting off rumination the moment it begins to develop (Watkins, 2013, 2016).

Targeting the Habit Rather Than the Content

Another approach common to Buddhist practice and CBT interventions is relating to disturbing thoughts as a tendency or a habit rather than directly dealing with their content. The attempt to solve every disturbing thought with more thoughts may cause the thoughts to increase instead of being quieted.

Instead of challenging the validity of specific negative thoughts, therapists focus on ruminations as a style of thinking, so that the improvement stems from changing the style of thinking and not necessarily from changing the content of a specific thought. Also in Buddhist traditions, in many cases, the practitioner is instructed to recognize the tendency to produce thoughts and cling to them, instead of trying to “argue” with the thoughts or “solve” them. In concentration practices, intrusive thoughts are perceived as a distraction, and the practitioner is instructed to abandon them and turn the attention elsewhere, for example through “practice with an anchor” described later.

Compassion

Additionally, one of the tools of CBT for treating rumination is compassion. In the Buddhist tradition, compassion is a tool and also a goal in itself. Compassion stands in stark contrast to ruminative thinking, which is characterized by criticality, judgment, and sometimes even harmfulness toward the self and toward others. Developing compassion allows for distancing from negative and repetitive thought patterns, and contributes to the ability for self-soothing and reducing persistent self-criticism, which are central features in disorders such as depression and anxiety.

While rumination may stem from an attempt at self-motivation or avoidance of an unwanted self through criticism and pressure, self-compassion offers a healthier alternative which can also assist in motivating action. It is based on encouragement, forgiveness, and connection to values, and allows for converting avoidance into an approach of moving toward positive goals. Using memories of events where compassion was used, creating images, and changing the tone of internal speech help to anchor the practice in real experiences and lead to creating deep emotional change (Watkins, 2016).

Contemporary Psychological Interventions

So far, we have described the common ground between the therapeutic perspective and the Buddhist one regarding the understanding of rumination, its sources, and the processes that may help address it. Now, we would like to address each of the perspectives separately, and briefly present some ways of working with rumination that each approach offers us.

Environmental Factors

A useful way to change ruminative patterns is identifying and changing factors in the environment that can increase the chance of rumination. The way of intervention can be diverse, from changing fixed routines in which rumination tends to appear, through reducing pressures, improving time management, enriching stimulus-poor environments that might serve as fertile ground for rumination, awareness of times of day when rumination appears more and planning alternative activities for those times, and more. All these constitute supporting options for changing the circumstances leading to rumination. Changing circumstances can be useful in increasing enjoyable and personally satisfying activities, shifting attention away from rumination, and strengthening the sense of control.

The influence of changing environmental factors can be demonstrated through therapeutic cases, in which the patients’ details were masked. For example, in a joint investigation with a patient coping with a diagnosis of depression, a lack of daily routine was identified, alongside fatigue and persistent tension in dealing with daily challenges, which led to excessive thinking and worry. Within the framework of the therapy, emphasis was placed on creating a structured routine, improving sleep quality, and time planning, in a way that reduced the environmental conditions that supported worry and rumination and strengthened the sense of control and competence.

In another case, a patient with PTSD avoided daily activities out of fear of encountering traumatic triggers. This extensive avoidance left much time without activity on one hand, and alongside it attempts to mask the experience of fear on the other, which were expressed in excessive ruminative thinking. Within the framework of the therapy, the patient gradually increased the level of activity through defining tasks to perform at home, alongside gradual exposure to the specific situations they avoided. These changes led to a significant reduction in the scope of rumination.

Working with Thought Style

Ruminative thinking tends to focus on the causes, consequences, and meanings of problems, instead of on ways to solve them. This style of thinking is usually abstract, exaggerated, and occupied with evaluations that are not related to the details of the situation. Such thinking makes problem-solving difficult, creates a bleak perception of reality, and continues the cycle of rumination. Consequently, one of the central emphases in treating rumination is moving from abstract thinking to concrete thinking, focused on details and solutions.

The more a thought is related to the specific circumstances of a given situation, the less negative and judgmental it tends to be. Thus, specific and distinguishing descriptions are more useful in directing actions and reduce the chance of triggering a chain of negative thoughts characteristic of rumination. In therapy, patients are encouraged to use a specific and concrete style of thinking, where there is a focus on context and the sequence of events. Central strategies in training in concreteness include replacing “why” questions that are considered maladaptive with useful and adaptive “how” questions, which shift the focus to solution and action (Watkins, 2016).

This strategy can be demonstrated through a specific behavioral experiment – “Why-How,” a central tool for encouraging concrete thinking (Watkins, 2016). The stages of the behavioral experiment are described here:

• The patient is asked to imagine a situation relevant to their life, for example, a situation where they must arrive at an important meeting or a job interview. They are asked to imagine themselves leaving at the last minute from home, getting into the car, sitting in the driver’s seat, and trying to start it, but discovering that the car won’t start.
• At this stage, the patient is invited to focus on the physical and emotional sensations that arise in them, and then to ask themselves a series of “why” questions: “Why didn’t I leave earlier? I knew this was an important meeting!”, “Why didn’t I check the car in advance?”, “Why am I always so irresponsible?”.
• After a few such questions, they are asked to pay attention to the sensations in the body, the emotion, and the thoughts that arise.
• Subsequently, the patient is asked to imagine the exact same situation, but this time to answer “how” questions: “How can I still get to the meeting – maybe I’ll order a taxi or call a friend?”, “How can I deal with the malfunction? Maybe check the engine cover?”, “Maybe I’ll contact the manager – I’ll explain the situation and postpone the meeting?”.
• At the end of the exercise, the patient compares the two forms of thinking.

Most patients report that “why” questions lead to a decrease in mood and sense of competence, while “how” questions increase the sense of control and the ability to act. This experience demonstrates the dynamic in an experiential way and offers alternatives for more effective coping.

Ending Thought with Action First: If-Then Plans

“If-Then” plans constitute strategies for breaking the cycle of rumination and replacing it with more useful actions. In many cases of rumination, thinking takes the place of doing, and therefore an increase in the level of activity leads to a reduction in mental preoccupation. This influence stems both from shifting energy to another channel, and from the change in the sense of competence and developing an alternative coping mechanism to excessive thinking. The central idea is creating counter-conditioning: every time a warning sign for rumination appears (“If…”), the patient proactively activates an alternative response (“Then…”). For example, if during the day I notice that I have been swept away into worries or self-criticism, then I will call one of three friends who will help me feel better, or then I will make a list of things I feel gratitude for today.

The plan is built in collaboration with the patient during therapy according to the triggers for rumination that they are asked to monitor at home between sessions. From this joint work, a personalized “If-Then” plan is formed, which the patient is asked to implement in daily life. The goal of the practice is to make the alternative response as automatic and available as possible through repeated practice, so that a fast and effective transition from a ruminative state to a more productive state will be possible.

Practices from the Buddhist Tradition

The goals of Buddhist practice may sound much more pretentious than those of modern psychology – complete liberation from all tendencies causing suffering and unease. On the way there, the Buddhist tradition strives to free the practitioner from the tendency to be swept away and cling to harmful thoughts. The uniqueness of the tradition is the practical striving to achieve these goals with the dedication of much time and energy to formal meditation practice. Progress involves practice, and a practitioner or patient who wants this will find practical and value-based support in intensive practice. In this part, we will describe some tools from the wide range of tools offered by the Buddhist tradition and touch on working with rumination.

Compassion Practice

The importance of compassion is mentioned in CBT literature, but it seems that a structured way to cultivate it is missing. Buddhist compassion practice is one of the practical ways to encourage an alternative processing style to rumination. During the practice, the practitioner replaces automatic, critical, or harmful mental content with proactive and positive content. The practice includes repeated and sustained expression of expressions of good intention – toward oneself, toward loved ones, or toward others in general. One can use repeated sentences (“May I be free from suffering,” “May I be healthy and peaceful”), visual images of giving, or even supportive physical touch like placing a palm on the chest.

The power of the practice stems from its simplicity and repetition. Sustained repetition creates momentum that causes the expression of compassion to become accessible and natural. Buddhist compassion practice is not only a therapeutic tool, but also an alternative way of life to rumination. Instead of passive and repetitive thought, it offers presence, acceptance, and conscious action.

Practice with an Anchor

Trying to “stop thinking” is an exceptionally challenging task. In contrast, shifting attention from a thought to another object is a more feasible task and even serves as the first instruction for beginner practitioners. In practice focusing on an anchor, an object is chosen for sustained observation, for example, the sensation of breathing in the abdomen. During meditation, the practitioner directs attention to the anchor with the intention to stay with it continuously. When the practitioner notices that attention has wandered to thoughts, they return it back to the anchor.

Using an anchor has great importance; with its help, there is a simple and accessible place that one can return to again and again, and over time, returning attention to it becomes automatic. During the practice, two skills improve: noticing being swept away and the ability to let go of clinging to sweeping thoughts.

Mental Labeling

Like many mental problems, rumination stems from a chain of events and responses that reinforce each other. An unpleasant thought causes an unpleasant emotion that causes contraction in the muscles, another thought, and so on. Mental labeling sharpens attention to what appears in consciousness and stops the harmful dynamic. In this technique, the practitioner follows the movement of consciousness with the help of labeling the experience of the moment. For example, when a sound appears, the practitioner says to themselves the word “hearing,” in a sensation of itching – “itching,” a thought will be labeled as “thought,” and so on.

That is, in the practice, one does not direct attention to the content of the thought, but only notices that a thought has appeared. When we call a thought “thought,” we notice that it is a thought and not necessarily the truth. When one dedicates attention to the appearance and disappearance of phenomena (such as thoughts) in consciousness, one learns about the nature of the harmful dynamic, that is, in this case, about the very arising of the thought.

Shifting attention from the content to the dynamic makes it easier to escape from it. Over time, awareness of the appearance of thoughts and the tendency to be swept away by their content becomes automatic, and less and less effort is required to identify a thought as a thought. As a result of formal practice of this type of meditation, awareness of a thought as a thought gradually appears also in daily life.

Practice with the Driving Emotion

In rumination, attention is shifted from the emotional and physical experience to the process of thinking. In fact, many times the ruminative habit develops as a way to avoid unpleasant emotions and sensations, even though it tends to intensify them in the long run. Basic mindfulness practices are based on the continuous turning of attention to body sensations and the expressions of emotions in it.

Acquaintance, awareness, and investigation of the somatic experience of sensations and emotions improve the ability to experience them in a more balanced and less judgmental way. Sustained and direct contact with unpleasant sensations and emotions allows the practitioner to learn through practical experience how to deal with them. Gradually, the practitioner cultivates intuitive knowledge regarding forms of response to emotion that increase tension, as opposed to beneficial responses that quiet the mind. The experience accumulated in sustained practice develops trust in the ability to stay with emotions without being swept away or harmed.

A useful option for understanding and changing rumination is turning attention to the very beginning of the thought sequence. Many times we wake up to awareness in the midst of a long sequence of thoughts, but gentle investigation reveals that rumination usually begins with an unpleasant sensation, fatigue, physical tension, or a simple external stimulus. Turning attention to the initial sensation combined with awareness of the physical tension accompanying rumination may reduce general arousal, decrease the tendency for excessive thinking, and shift attention from the content of the thoughts to the circumstances in which they arise.

Emotions are important signals that mobilize resources for problem-solving. For example, anger can signal that there is a need to set a boundary, and sadness can signal a need to ask for help. The problem is not the emotion itself but unskilled responses to it, like rumination and avoidance. When a certain type of thought appears again and again, one of the tools that can be used is to ask “what is the emotion behind the thought,” or “what emotion is the thought intended to solve?”. Are my thoughts intended to convince me that I am right in order to stop feeling guilty? Am I returning again and again to thoughts about a certain worry in the hope of finding a thought that will relieve me of the feeling of anxiety? Am I returning again and again to an argument from the past because I am unable to accept the way the argument went?

When the practitioner identifies that behind the repetitive preoccupation with a thought there is an unpleasant emotion or sensation, they turn attention to the emotion or to the expression of the emotion in the body instead of trying to mask it with thoughts. If the thoughts are really intended to avoid contact with an emotion, balanced staying with the emotion itself can gradually weaken the tendency for escape and rumination. In the long run, the experience accumulated in practicing contact with difficulty may cultivate trust and confidence in the ability to deal with unpleasant emotions and change automatic habits.

Summary

Rumination is a significant core process characterizing mental challenges and many disorders. It has been found that rumination is not just a side effect, but a causal or aggravating factor of a variety of disorders. Understanding its mechanisms allows not only for accurate diagnosis but also for opening the door to more effective, more targeted, and sometimes short-term treatment plans. Treatment that targets rumination itself, and not just the symptoms accompanying it, offers a real chance for improvement in mood, in reducing anxiety, and in returning to full functioning.

In observing the ways of coping of Buddhist meditation with Prapañca, and the psychological intervention methods that we presented here, one can find great similarity, both in the theoretical thinking behind them and in the intervention practices they offer. From the concrete investigation of “how” instead of “why,” through mindfulness techniques, to rumination-focused treatments, all point in the same direction. In a broad view, this direction is cultivating clarity and deep understanding in the patient or practitioner regarding internal mechanisms, focusing on habits and less on specific content, and moving from passive and repetitive thought to intentional and conscious action.

Apart from therapeutic approaches, the Buddhist approach to dealing with rumination may be of great help. Deep experiential investigation of mental phenomena and the chain of events leading to distress may lead to liberating insights. The systematic approach of dedicating time and energy in formal meditation practice allows for realizing the insights and embedding them as habits. In the article, we brought several traditional Buddhist practices that do not usually appear in the existing therapeutic toolkit, and we believe that these practices may be useful for treating rumination.

The combination of research-based interventions with the practical knowledge accumulated in thousands of years of Buddhist practice offers us ways of thinking and approaches of great value, and useful ways of coping. In the article, we called for focusing and deepening the ruminative thinking process and dealing with rumination as a habit or tendency, instead of focusing on the attempt to replace the content of the thoughts or understand their meaning. We believe that the therapeutic and research experience in CBT combined with Buddhist practice techniques can constitute a significant contribution to more effective interventions and improve quality of life.

About the Authors

Sagi Gottfried – Integrative psychotherapist, certified in trauma-focused therapy and CBT. Has a research background in neurobiology and psychology. Sagi has been intensively practicing Buddhist meditation for over a decade, including long periods of practice in the East. In his work, he combines clinical and research knowledge with practical experience from practice traditions for the purpose of developing an integrative approach to therapy.

Dr. Dekel Kanti – Has been practicing Dharma for over 20 years, of which about two and a half years in total in silent retreats in the East, England, the United States, and Israel. Researched ways of coping with personal crises and leadership crises in the community. Worked as a facilitator of discussion and conflict resolution groups and as a day treatment coordinator in a rehabilitation institution for former prisoners.

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This article was originally published in Hebrew on Betipulnet.