ABSTRACT
According to S-REF theory and MCT, a particular style of thinking and ways of coping with negative ideas and threat are a fundamental feature of all psychological disorders. This style, called the CAS, consists of persistent thinking in the form of worry and rumination, focusing attention on sources of threat, and coping behaviours that back®re because they impair effective self-regulation of thoughts and emotions and learning of corrective information. If we return to the example of the students who failed, introduced in Point 2, the one who became depressed engaged in brooding on the reasons for being a failure, why it had happened this time and why it had happened in the past and what this meant about his ability. This form of conceptual analysis is rumination and it prolongs and intensi®es negative ideas and emotions. It focuses on analysing why things happened and what this means; however, in the misguided pursuit of understanding, it rarely generates useful solutions or exerts more adaptive control over emotional processing. The more adaptive solution is represented by the response of the student who did not become depressed. This individual engaged in a short period of brooding but then decided that the best thing to do was focus on how he could improve his performance the next time around. In effect, this student exercised control over his rumination and activated a different strategy in response to thoughts/beliefs about being a failure.
