I find interesting the separation of ruminators from solution-finders. I always felt that ruminating on a topic is tantamount to seeking a solution, whereas not ruminating on it is equivalent to ignoring it and hoping that it will go away by itself: a mood-lifting activity, for example, does not seem, at least on the face of it, to contain anything solution-related to a son's fight with his dad.

tends to abandon helpful coping strategies even when they bring about positive feedback

Perhaps because the coping strategies are trying to change his emotions rather than fix the real problem which is outside of him?

Of course that may be overly simplistic, as I guess all manner of styles and combinations exist: fruitful and unfruitful ruminators as well as fruitful and unfruitful non-ruminators.

Davis and Nolen-Hoekseman found that men are more likely to ruminate as a consequence of cognitive-rigidity than women. Also, men report their rumination and sad moments less than women.

Interesting sex-differences!

A nicely written and balanced post, and I liked the forays into Keenan and Lao Tzu. It's nice when examples from the real world or from literature are brought in to make the scientific topic being discussed more lively.

An interesting question, or thought, is how much Keenan's method of observing from an objective POV might be related to a body's automatic strategy of depersonalization as a result of severe trauma and abuse.

One of the people I like and follow is Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine fame. Yesterday I received an email from Skeptic about a new book called Unfuckology - behavioral self-help based on strict science - and there's a whole video interview with the author that I haven't watched yet (cos it's 1.5 hours long!). So anyway I wanted to bring that to your attention!