[vonmoxie]

Intrigued by what I just learned about self-referential encoding and how it relates to a couple of psychological difficulties, I wanted to share some of it here. Self-referential encoding (SRE) is a concept which defines the way that people generally interpret the massive amount of information that we do specifically in terms of how the information refers to ourselves. This is actually often referred to and by many in a somewhat incriminating manner in terms of ego:

“Always, always, always referring every g0ddam thing that happens right back to our lousy little egos.”
—J.D. Salinger

“However dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable 'I.'”
—Joan Didion

But the concept of self-referential encoding suggests that this is simply the way that we process, and research has since evolved to look at its role for those on the autism spectrum as well as for those dealing with depression. In terms of depression think it especially speaks to what is often experienced as a downward spiral, and the inescapable feeling of it -- that which I think tends to be the most difficult for those lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the feelings to understand.

Kovacs and Beck (1977) posited a schematic model of depression where an already depressed self was primed by outside prompts that negatively impacted cognitive illusions of the world in the eye of oneself. These prompts only led participants to a more depressive series of emotions and behavior.

Generally, self-focus is associated with negative emotions. In particular private self-focus is more strongly associated with depression than public self-focus.(1)

What is really interesting about it though, to me, is what the brain-imaging studies have shown with regard to the underlying reason:

Results from brain-imaging studies shows that during self-referential processing, those with major depressive disorder show greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting that depressed individuals may be exhibiting greater cognitive control than non-depressed individuals when processing self-relevant information.(2)

My depression actually got much worse after attending a series of fairly garden-variety seminars that were about manifesting one's own destiny. A dear and well-meaning friend had highly recommended them, and as I was in a moment of some flux and distress in my life, my decision to attend was not my best one. The thing is, I have never struggled with that concept to begin with, that we can drive our own lives; in truth I have been rewarded with much more positive success in life than my upbringing and array of opportunities could ever have predicted. However, due to the seminar organization employing what I consider to have been drastic and inappropriate methods for the setting, such as hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming, I got the absolutely wrong help for what I personally had going on, and ended up without any remaining authentic belief that anything or anyone except for myself, could possibly ever influence my destiny. Leaving me with the type of overarching and unreasonable sense of personal responsibility for the events of my own life that a child tends to have, but grows out of. However, I'm already quite grown, and now many years lost for a working solution on this particular matter.

Anyway, this concept made a great deal of sense to me, and at the very least helps me to understand (and not blame myself for) why talk therapy doesn't work for me, why positive affirmations are ineffective for me, and mainly, why I still haven't gotten out of this now 7-year episode of major depression. I suppose I also hope the concept can offer some relief with regard to the part of the negative spiral that tells us there's something wrong with us that we can't control our negative thoughts, in that ironically, it's an inherently greater cognitive control that is making it difficult! I hope my sharing it here will provide some food for those for others who may struggle with similar challenges.

(1,2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-referential_encoding

[Skeezyks]

Thanks for sharing this interesting information, vonmoxie. I was not familiar with it.

[vital]

Hi vonmoxie,

Thanks very much for pointing this out. I'm just learning about this myself too and it's really, really interesting.

As far as I can tell so far, the main areas of the brain differences in depressed patients outside the "emotional brain" ("limbic system") is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the one you're talking about and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).

The vmPFC is associated with
Generation of negative emotions (strong projections to the amygdala)
Self-awareness and self-reflection (as you say)
Guilt, shame embarrassment and regret

The dlPFC is associated with
Intention formation
Goal-directed action
Attention control
Blocking/reassessing negative emotions
Working memory and abstract reasoning

Notice that the dlPFC function sounds VERY familiar if you have read about snap club. If the idea behind snap club is correct, you would expect dlPFC to be suppressed in depressed patients. Sure enough, fMRIs, lesion studies and stimulation studies all show that dlPFC is suppressed for depressed patients and the vmPFC is activated for depressed patients. Without dlPFC activity, behavior is "on autopilot". In fact, when depressed or PTSD patients get treated with transcranial magnetic stimulation ("TMS") or deep brain stimulation ("DBS"), the part of the brain that they are trying to stimulate is exactly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex!

- vital

[TerriLynn]

This is interesting, ALMOST over my head, but great food for thought.

[Fuzzybear]

[lavendersage]

Ok, I'm trying to grasp this but it's almost over my head, too.

So, a couple of questions/requests for clarity:

1) The "ego" is not necessarily the "big bad" it's been troped up to be for decades; but, rather, an "information processing system" for humans?

2) Quote: "Kovacs and Beck (1977) posited a schematic model of depression where an already depressed self was primed by outside prompts that negatively impacted cognitive illusions of the world in the eye of oneself. These prompts only led participants to a more depressive series of emotions and behavior.

Generally, self-focus is associated with negative emotions. In particular private self-focus is more strongly associated with depression than public self-focus."

I'm lost. First - what is "private" and "public" self focus? Then, please to explain in simpler terms what this quote was conveying?

3) Quote: "Results from brain-imaging studies shows that during self-referential processing, those with major depressive disorder show greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting that depressed individuals may be exhibiting greater cognitive control than non-depressed individuals when processing self-relevant information.(2)

Ok.....what? Those of us with MDD are exhibiting greater cognitive control than non-depressed individuals? Greater cognitive control over what? (I'm not being sarcastic here, btw: I truly don't get it.) Does this mean (I can't help but laugh because I'm sure [I hope] it doesn't mean this) that people with MDD's "greater cognitive control" means that we really DO understand that life is shyte better than your average bear and aren't walking around trying to fool ourselves life's all one big party. Or is it (again I'm laughing but also hoping it doesn't mean) that our "greater cognitive control" keeps us from completely mentally decompensating when we've rightly figured out, "What is the g**damn point? Answer: there is no point!!"

4) Though never before having struggled with the idea that you could forge your own destiny, going to those seminars in a "wrong time, wrong place" misguided time in your life....you came away thinking, "It's ALLLLLL on me - nobody and nothing can help me get out of my own way - I bear 100% responsibility" which was NOT the best thing for you to hear at that particular time in your life as you needed a "helping hand" so-to-speak but walked away from those thinking "Everything is MY fault and I have to do it all by myself." Do I have that right?

5) Lastly, Quote: at the very least helps me to understand (and not blame myself for) why talk therapy doesn't work for me, why positive affirmations are ineffective for me, and mainly, why I still haven't gotten out of this now 7-year episode of major depression. I suppose I also hope the concept can offer some relief with regard to the part of the negative spiral that tells us there's something wrong with us that we can't control our negative thoughts, in that ironically, it's an inherently greater cognitive control that is making it difficult!

I'm lost again. Why don't talk therapy, positive affirmations, and not being able to get out of your extended length of depression make sense to you?

And (finally) there's that "greater cognitive control" thing again. How/what does that mean in terms of the bolded, italicized part of your quote?

P.S. If you don't decide to try to explain, I don't blame you. Never before have I wanted so badly to be able to pick up the phone and call the poster (you, in this case) and say, "WTH? I don't get parts of what you said." And then ask tons of questions. It's hard to put my questions/confusion in writing!

[vital]

Hi lavendersage,

It's really hard to tell from that wiki article, but if you can get access to "The functional neuroanatomy of depression: Distinct roles for ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex" by Koenigs and Grafman (Behavioral Brain Research 2009), it's clearer and easy to understand.

vmPFC == ventromedial prefrontal cortex
dlPFC == dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

vmPFC is involved in negative emotions and self-reflection in a mostly auto-pilot, ruminating sort of way.

dlPFC is involved in intention and goal-directed action, i.e. deciding stuff. It is also involved in stopping and reassessing automatic negative emotional responses.

These are necessarily very rough descriptions, of course.

The "depressed people show greater cognitive control" thing is interpreted as the dlPFC is more active for depressed people when they are trying to perform some task, meaning that for depressed people, the dlPFC has to bat down more negative thoughts and emotional responses than a happy person, which makes a lot of sense to me, intuitively.

The wiki article is mixed up with the theory of Beck and Kovacs (which I don't personally think is right), but you can just look at what happens for patients who have damaged to their vmPFC. The answer is that they have greatly reduced negative thoughts and greatly reduced ability to self-reflect. There are even two extreme cases. One patient was being treated for severe depression. She attempted suicide by gunshot and she happened to destroy her vmPFC but left her dlPFC mainly intact (unlike in the movies, gunshots to the head aren't always fatal!). After this, she reported a complete absence of sadness or suicidal ideation! Another case of a depressed man doing the same thing with a crossbow. He also survived and became "indifferent to his situation and inappropriately cheerful". This is the basis for a surgery option for depression - go in and destroy the vmPFC.

The most exciting thing for me is that the dlPFC is the hero of this story and is suppressed for depressed persons and this makes perfect sense in the context of "SNAP CLUB". I suspect that sudden giant improvements with SNAP CLUB happen because people are able to activate their own dlPFCs, rather than having to have TMS or the extremely invasive DBS where they implant electrodes and such in your brain. "Never making a decision" and "having low dlPFC activity" are possibly almost the same thing.

- vital

Thanks for this, vm. The title made me giggle for some reason - probably because I had no idea what it meant and suddenly had the feeling that my head might explode.

What you wrote makes a lot of sense, though. I'm sorry to hear about the damage from the "manifesting one's destiny" seminars. Someone dear to me is involved in one of those types of belief systems. I consider them to be toxic, although I know that millions of people think they're wonderful.

[vonmoxie]

Lavendersage, thank you for taking the time to let me know where I might better clarify this, I am happy to do so. I'm hardly ever accused of being too brief, and try very hard to curb my rambling when posting, so my apologies if in this case I overcorrected

Originally Posted by lavendersage

1) The "ego" is not necessarily the "big bad" it's been troped up to be for decades; but, rather, an "information processing system" for humans?

The idea that I meant to communicate here is that if the normal functioning of the brain itself is such that everything we think does reference the self, then demonizing ourselves for being self-involved probably often involves more self-recrimination than is ultimately effective, just representing more negative thoughts to deal with. In this context I was using "ego" the way that Salinger did, the more negative connotation of the word. I don't think that the idea I'm presenting necessarily contests the meaning of ego as you're referring to it, but merely that the underlying self-referencing that happens is just the way we process thoughts. Since one thing they suggest is that "Information encoded with the self is better remembered than information encoded with reference to something else", perhaps we process that way simply because it works better.

Originally Posted by lavendersage

2) Quote: "Kovacs and Beck (1977) posited a schematic model of depression where an already depressed self was primed by outside prompts that negatively impacted cognitive illusions of the world in the eye of oneself. These prompts only led participants to a more depressive series of emotions and behavior.

Generally, self-focus is associated with negative emotions. In particular private self-focus is more strongly associated with depression than public self-focus."

I'm lost. First - what is "private" and "public" self focus? Then, please to explain in simpler terms what this quote was conveying?

I think that what they mean here is that the way we who are prone to depression reference our concept of self within our thoughts when we are alone ("private self-focus") is more negative than the way that we do so within interactions among other people ("public self-focus"). I’ve certainly experienced this, and for me it really speaks to the trap that social isolation can become.

Originally Posted by lavendersage

3) Quote: "Results from brain-imaging studies shows that during self-referential processing, those with major depressive disorder show greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting that depressed individuals may be exhibiting greater cognitive control than non-depressed individuals when processing self-relevant information.(2)

Ok.....what? Those of us with MDD are exhibiting greater cognitive control than non-depressed individuals? Greater cognitive control over what? (I'm not being sarcastic here, btw: I truly don't get it.) Does this mean (I can't help but laugh because I'm sure [I hope] it doesn't mean this) that people with MDD's "greater cognitive control" means that we really DO understand that life is shyte better than your average bear and aren't walking around trying to fool ourselves life's all one big party. Or is it (again I'm laughing but also hoping it doesn't mean) that our "greater cognitive control" keeps us from completely mentally decompensating when we've rightly figured out, "What is the g**damn point? Answer: there is no point!!"

I don't think it's anything to do with consciously fooling ourselves. I think the control referred to here is at an inner level of thinking, i.e. not our conscious selves going “I’m going to control this”, but our inner processing exerting greater controls without our conscious involvement, the way that the thought to turn our head when we hear something occurs without any real conscious involvement. Anyway it may sound counter-intuitive to suggest that this involves greater capacity for control on our parts, but that’s what the research suggests. To me it gives hope, since although without our conscious authorization these thoughts can wreak havoc, it does seem to stand to reason that there may also be ways to gain conscious control, or at least to influence the unconscious control that's happening. Right now I seem to have zero control, conscious or otherwise, so I have nowhere to go but up where hope is concerned.

Originally Posted by lavendersage

4) Though never before having struggled with the idea that you could forge your own destiny, going to those seminars in a "wrong time, wrong place" misguided time in your life....you came away thinking, "It's ALLLLLL on me - nobody and nothing can help me get out of my own way - I bear 100% responsibility" which was NOT the best thing for you to hear at that particular time in your life as you needed a "helping hand" so-to-speak but walked away from those thinking "Everything is MY fault and I have to do it all by myself." Do I have that right?

You got it. Everything is my fault, and in ways that I can’t use logic to escape. It's at a very deep level that I can't access that I am currently stuck with a belief system about my responsibility for every minutia in my life, and I have found no practical (or impractical) way to contest this. Survivors guilt, which I have, is an awful example of how this can work. I can't think myself out of the idea that I could have done something different, better, to have caused a certain person to still be here. There's also no proof to the contrary, so why can't I mindfully choose that more positive and perfectly reasonable outlook? That's the part that is still pretty mysterious to me.

Originally Posted by lavendersage

5) Lastly, Quote: at the very least helps me to understand (and not blame myself for) why talk therapy doesn't work for me, why positive affirmations are ineffective for me, and mainly, why I still haven't gotten out of this now 7-year episode of major depression. I suppose I also hope the concept can offer some relief with regard to the part of the negative spiral that tells us there's something wrong with us that we can't control our negative thoughts, in that ironically, it's an inherently greater cognitive control that is making it difficult!

I'm lost again. Why don't talk therapy, positive affirmations, and not being able to get out of your extended length of depression make sense to you?

Regarding talk therapy, positive affirmations and the like – it’s not that they don’t make sense to me. I have really wholeheartedly tried, have probably spent a whole hardworking year’s salary on the former. It’s just that for me they haven’t worked even a little, and that their inclusion in my process may have even made some things worse.

Originally Posted by lavendersage

And (finally) there's that "greater cognitive control" thing again. How/what does that mean in terms of the bolded, italicized part of your quote?

If those of us prone to depression do have greater capacity for control where thought selection is concerned, then although the end result tends to be that we end up processing a negative thought by default, I'm also hopeful if I can only find that lever in my noggin, I could potentially change that. Idk, maybe biofeedback? I might start devoting time for meditation each day.

[vonmoxie]

Originally Posted by vital

As far as I can tell so far, the main areas of the brain differences in depressed patients outside the "emotional brain" ("limbic system") is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the one you're talking about and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).

The vmPFC is associated with
Generation of negative emotions (strong projections to the amygdala)
Self-awareness and self-reflection (as you say)
Guilt, shame embarrassment and regret

The dlPFC is associated with
Intention formation
Goal-directed action
Attention control
Blocking/reassessing negative emotions
Working memory and abstract reasoning

Notice that the dlPFC function sounds VERY familiar if you have read about snap club. If the idea behind snap club is correct, you would expect dlPFC to be suppressed in depressed patients. Sure enough, fMRIs, lesion studies and stimulation studies all show that dlPFC is suppressed for depressed patients and the vmPFC is activated for depressed patients. Without dlPFC activity, behavior is "on autopilot". In fact, when depressed or PTSD patients get treated with transcranial magnetic stimulation ("TMS") or deep brain stimulation ("DBS"), the part of the brain that they are trying to stimulate is exactly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex!

I confess, my knowledge of the pulleys and levers and subdivisions involved doesn't come anywhere near to yours. Working on it though.

Have you been watching that new PBS series, The Brain with David Eagleman? Last night's episode focused on some really interesting aspects of memory processing, and included an interview with Elizabeth Loftus. I didn't catch the whole thing, but it gets replayed a couple of times during the week so I'm going to catch the rest later. Skeezyks turned me on to it.

[TerriLynn]

Ya'll are way too smart for me! I am trying to process all this!

[lavendersage]

Ok....diving off the high board again here....

Quote: Originally Posted by lavendersage

1) The "ego" is not necessarily the "big bad" it's been troped up to be for decades; but, rather, an "information processing system" for humans?

The idea that I meant to communicate here is that if the normal functioning of the brain itself is such that everything we think does reference the self, then demonizing ourselves for being self-involved probably often involves more self-recrimination than is ultimately effective, just representing more negative thoughts to deal with. In this context I was using "ego" the way that Salinger did, the more negative connotation of the word. I don't think that the idea I'm presenting necessarily contests the meaning of ego as you're referring to it, but merely that the underlying self-referencing that happens is just the way we process thoughts. Since one thing they suggest is that "Information encoded with the self is better remembered than information encoded with reference to something else", perhaps we process that way simply because it works better.

1) So, I was right then. The ego (i.e. self-referenced information processing) is simply possibly the way we, humans, are wired. Nothing good or bad about it: it just is what it is?

Quote: Originally Posted by lavendersage

2) Quote: "Kovacs and Beck (1977) posited a schematic model of depression where an already depressed self was primed by outside prompts that negatively impacted cognitive illusions of the world in the eye of oneself. These prompts only led participants to a more depressive series of emotions and behavior.

Generally, self-focus is associated with negative emotions. In particular private self-focus is more strongly associated with depression than public self-focus."

I'm lost. First - what is "private" and "public" self-focus? Then, please to explain in simpler terms what this quote was conveying?

I think that what they mean here is that the way we who are prone to depression reference our concept of self within our thoughts when we are alone ("private self-focus") is more negative than the way that we do so within interactions among other people ("public self-focus"). I’ve certainly experienced this, and for me it really speaks to the trap that social isolation can become.

2) So...self-isolation becomes a self-defeating, Sisyphean circle-j because bad/sad feeds on bad/sad begetting more bad/sad and they told two friends and so on.....?

Quote: Originally Posted by lavendersage

3) Quote: "Results from brain-imaging studies shows that during self-referential processing, those with major depressive disorder show greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting that depressed individuals may be exhibiting greater cognitive control than non-depressed individuals when processing self-relevant information.(2)

Ok.....what? Those of us with MDD are exhibiting greater cognitive control than non-depressed individuals? Greater cognitive control over what? (I'm not being sarcastic here, btw: I truly don't get it.) Does this mean (I can't help but laugh because I'm sure [I hope] it doesn't mean this) that people with MDD's "greater cognitive control" means that we really DO understand that life is shyte better than your average bear and aren't walking around trying to fool ourselves life's all one big party. Or is it (again I'm laughing but also hoping it doesn't mean) that our "greater cognitive control" keeps us from completely mentally decompensating when we've rightly figured out, "What is the g**damn point? Answer: there is no point!!"

I don't think it's anything to do with consciously fooling ourselves. I think the control referred to here is at an inner level of thinking, i.e. not our conscious selves going “I’m going to control this”, but our inner processing exerting greater controls without our conscious involvement, the way that the thought to turn our head when we hear something occurs without any real conscious involvement. Anyway it may sound counter-intuitive to suggest that this involves greater capacity for control on our parts, but that’s what the research suggests. To me it gives hope, since although without our conscious authorization these thoughts can wreak havoc, it does seem to stand to reason that there may also be ways to gain conscious control, or at least to influence the unconscious control that's happening. Right now I seem to have zero control, conscious or otherwise, so I have nowhere to go but up where hope is concerned.

3) If my head explodes, it IS all your fault. What? I get that turning our head to notice a noise is virtually done without conscious thought…but how does this tie-in with this “greater cognitive control”? I am very much hoping you’re going to tell me that people with MDD are turning out to have heretofore undiscovered Super Powers and am wondering where I can buy a cape. I am teasing but I still don’t get it.

Quote: Originally Posted by lavendersage

4) Though never before having struggled with the idea that you could forge your own destiny, going to those seminars in a "wrong time, wrong place" misguided time in your life....you came away thinking, "It's ALLLLLL on me - nobody and nothing can help me get out of my own way - I bear 100% responsibility" which was NOT the best thing for you to hear at that particular time in your life as you needed a "helping hand" so-to-speak but walked away from those thinking "Everything is MY fault and I have to do it all by myself." Do I have that right?

You got it. Everything is my fault, and in ways that I can’t use logic to escape. It's at a very deep level that I can't access that I am currently stuck with a belief system about my responsibility for every minutia in my life, and I have found no practical (or impractical) way to contest this. Survivors guilt, which I have, is an awful example of how this can work. I can't think myself out of the idea that I could have done something different, better, to have caused a certain person to still be here. There's also no proof to the contrary, so why can't I mindfully choose that more positive and perfectly reasonable outlook? That's the part that is still pretty mysterious to me.

4) Yay – I finally got one! Hmmmmm… I think you need to try mindfulness – not meditation. They are not (as I thought) the same thing.

Also, your comment about survivor guilt reminds of a movie with Jeff Bridges and Rose Perez in which they survive a plane crash but Rosie Perez’s character’s baby (whom she was holding in her arms at the time the plane went down) died. Google that and if you can, watch the film. I know it sounds trite but it was actually a pretty powerful film. Maybe it will help??

Quote: Originally Posted by lavendersage

5) Lastly, Quote: at the very least helps me to understand (and not blame myself for) why talk therapy doesn't work for me, why positive affirmations are ineffective for me, and mainly, why I still haven't gotten out of this now 7-year episode of major depression. I suppose I also hope the concept can offer some relief with regard to the part of the negative spiral that tells us there's something wrong with us that we can't control our negative thoughts, in that ironically, it's an inherently greater cognitive control that is making it difficult!

I'm lost again. Why don't talk therapy, positive affirmations, and not being able to get out of your extended length of depression make sense to you?

Regarding talk therapy, positive affirmations and the like – it’s not that they don’t make sense to me. I have really wholeheartedly tried, have probably spent a whole hardworking year’s salary on the former. It’s just that for me they haven’t worked even a little, and that their inclusion in my process may have even made some things worse.

5) Ok. Wow. I think you may be too “inside your head”. It makes me think of the saying, “Don’t go tooooo deep…you could drown.” ‘Knowledge is Power’ and and an un-self-aware life is not (IMO) a life worth living….but there’s also something to be said for “ignorance is bliss”…or, at the very least, only wading-in waist deep. You know what I mean?

Quote: Originally Posted by lavendersage

And (finally) there's that "greater cognitive control" thing again. How/what does that mean in terms of the bolded, italicized part of your quote?

If those of us prone to depression do have greater capacity for control where thought selection is concerned, then although the end result tends to be that we end up processing a negative thought by default, I'm also hopeful if I can only find that lever in my noggin, I could potentially change that. Idk, maybe biofeedback? I might start devoting time for meditation each day.

6) People who experience MDD, on the whole, have greater capacity for control in terms of thought selection but, during a DEPRESSED state we default to thinking the negative thought? Is that what you mean? I would like to find that lever, too.

[vonmoxie]

Originally Posted by lavendersage

I think you may be too “inside your head”. It makes me think of the saying, “Don’t go tooooo deep…you could drown.” ‘Knowledge is Power’ and and an un-self-aware life is not (IMO) a life worth living….but there’s also something to be said for “ignorance is bliss”…or, at the very least, only wading-in waist deep. You know what I mean?

It's simply the way that my noggin works; vive la difference, eh? I can only work with what relative talents I've got in life, and having a modicum of flair for analysis I've naturally gravitated towards the types of activities that make some use of the skill. For the most part my brain doesn't seem to know how to stop at waist-deep where learning is concerned. Not disagreeing with you that it might be a good idea, only that I yam what I yam, like old Popeye, and figure I ought to make the best of it.



Funny you mention ignorance being bliss.. it's one of my favorite sayings, and I think an especially profound truism. Trouble is, while it can surely be a great place to be, it's a very difficult place to return to.

I will def look for the movie (looked it up.. it's called "Fearless"). Thanks for the recommendation.

4) Yay – I finally got one! Hmmmmm… I think you need to try mindfulness – not meditation. They are not (as I thought) the same thing.

I thought about mindfulness, too, when I read the bit von moxie wrote that you were responding to here. I was especially thinking of the "noticing, not judging" practice. I first learned about this practice in yoga classes several years ago then I forgot about it for a while.

Lately, my therapy group has been doing noticing but not judging exercises. I think it's a good tool for fighting the downward spiral of depression, because it takes away a lot of anxiety and guilt about how things in our life may be going. It can also break the link that causes us to feel bad because we are having negative thoughts about ourselves.

I'm going to link to a couple of YouTube videos for a particular mindfulness exercise for defusing negative thoughts called Leaves on a Stream. (I don't think either of these videos are particularly good, but I don't have any better links at the moment.) The exercise itself is very good, I think. I like the visual aspect of imagining placing whatever is causing me distress or hurt on a leaf and watching it float down the stream and out of sight.

If you do a search for "Leaves on a Stream", you can find dozens of YouTube clips with narrated meditations on this topic.