Women Conquering Depression: How to Gain Control of Eating, Drinking, and Overthinking and Embrace a Healthier Life

by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema

From the author of Women Who Think Too Much , a groundbreaking book that uncovers a hidden source of depression in women today

Depression is a common and debilitating problem among women, though it rarely occurs in a vaccum. As Susan Nolen-Hoeksema's original research shows, overthinking―a tendency to ruminate on problems rather than to seek solutions―often co-exists with unhealthy eating habits and/or heavy drinking. In fact, 80 percent of women who report suffering from one of those also suffer from another. This groundbreaking book, written in a vivid narrative style that captures the complexities of women's lives today, explains how the three core problems of the Toxic Triangle reinforce one another, wreaking havoc on women's emotional well-being, physical health, relationships, and careers.

Escape is possible, Nolen-Hoeksema assures us, for those who are already aware that they suffer from a serious problem as well as for the hundreds of thousands of others who have not yet examined the role that bingeing and purging―on negative thoughts, food, or alcohol―plays in their lives. Nolen-Hoeksema shows women how to harness their emotional and interpersonal strengths to overcome the stress caused by a destructive relationship with food, alcohol, and overthinking so that they can fashion effective, healthier strategies for living the life they deserve.

Genres: Psychology

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema was born on May 22, 1959, in Springfield, Ill., to John and Catherine Nolen. Her father ran a construction business, where her mother was the office manager; Susan was the eldest of three children.

Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, psychologist and writer, helped explain why women are twice as prone to depression as men and why such low moods can be so hard to shake. Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema, a professor at Yale University, began studying depression in the 1980s.

She entered Illinois State University before transferring to Yale. She graduated summa cum laude in 1982 with a degree in psychology. After earning a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, she joined the faculty at Stanford. She later moved to the University of Michigan, before returning to Yale in 2004.

Along the way she published scores of studies and a popular textbook. In 2003 she became the editor of the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, an influential journal.

Her studies, first in children and later in adults, exposed one of the most deceptively upsetting of these patterns: rumination, the natural instinct to dwell on the sources of problems rather than their possible solutions. Women were more prone to ruminate than men, the studies found, and in a landmark 1987 paper she argued that this difference accounted for the two-to-one ratio of depressed women to depressed men.

She later linked rumination to a variety of mood and behavior problems, including anxiety, eating disorders and substance abuse.

Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema wrote several books about her research for general readers, including “Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Overthinking and Reclaim Your Life.” These books described why rumination could be so corrosive — it is deeply distracting; it tends to highlight negative memories — and how such thoughts could be alleviated.