Lost in Speech: Depressive Rumination and the Dynamics of Inner Silence.
Inquiry November 14, 2025 Dan Degerman, Jae Ryeong Sul 1 citation
Depressive rumination involves a disruption in the capacity for inner silence, where individuals yearn for but cannot initiate or maintain a quiet inner state. This inability to achieve inner silence explains the distress of rumination and why therapies like meditation are effective. The analysis draws on first-person depression narratives and recent philosophy of psychiatry and psychology to clarify this underexplored phenomenological aspect, which has been overlooked by higher-level analyses of depression.