Abstract
The journal occasionally publishes a series of articles on a topic of cutting-edge research that will advance our understanding of mental health and illness. The goal is to feature diverse models, methods, disciplines, and approaches. This series is on repetitive thinking. The topic has prompted theory, research, and intervention and continues to be an extremely active area of work. Our interest (as a journal) in repetitive thinking is in the role it may play in clinical dysfunction but also in mental health and physical health more generally. Apart from the role of repetitive thinking in clinical dysfunction, such thinking plays a pervasive role in everyday life and more broadly is central to the human condition. This series is rich in the facets of repetitive thinking that are discussed and illustrated, including the role of rumination in dysfunction and therapeutic change. Of special interest is how repetitive thinking and clinical dysfunction relate to core psychological processes (e.g., attentional, self-control, memory). The series illustrates the diverse lines of work related to ruminative thinking and the many paradigms and tasks utilized to elaborate key processes and factors associated with that thinking.
It is a special privilege to have Rudi De Raedt, Paula Hertel, and Edward Watkins as guest editors. Their own contributions to this area of research are well known. The journal was extremely fortunate in their collaboration to develop a series that sampled among the many advances on the topic and to underscore the importance of mechanisms so central to our journal. Their introduction to the series, which follows, places the area of repetitive thinking in broader contexts and discusses how the different contributions connect. As editor and speaking in behalf of the journal, we are extremely grateful for their conceptualization of the series and untiring efforts to bring it to fruition.