Areas › Worry and anxiety › What worry does
When a young person seems impossible to satisfy, the complaining is usually a symptom rather than ingratitude. Saying that plainly to a parent changes what they feel.
Parents worn down by years of grumbling often arrive carrying a resentment they are ashamed of. Naming the negativity as part of an illness gives them somewhere else to put it, and concern is much easier to act on than resentment. It also lifts the young person out of the role of being the family's problem, which tends to be a relief to everyone in the room.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God wishes to lighten your burden; man was created weak (Quran 4:28). Weakness is met by having the load lightened, not by being told off for having it.
يُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ أَن يُخَفِّفَ عَنكُمۡۚ وَخُلِقَ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنُ ضَعِيفࣰ ا
God wishes to lighten your burden; man was created weak
Qur’an 4:28read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of randomised trials found that treatments for depression reduce repetitive negative thinking, though therapies built specifically to target rumination were not clearly better than the others. The stuck negative commentary is treatable, which is the point worth making to a family who assume it is simply how their child is. It does not tell anyone which treatment to choose.
Spinhoven P, Klein N, Kennis M, Cramer AOJ, Siegle G, Cuijpers P, Ormel J, Hollon SD, Bockting CL. (2018). The effects of cognitive-behavior therapy for depression on repetitive negative thinking: A meta-analysis.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Once the behaviour has a name, a family can be frustrated with the illness rather than with the person.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
The worst symptom is not always the one that costs the most. Ask what actually stops you doing things, and start there.
Listen for the words I can't. When anxiety is doing the talking, that phrase turns up long before any evidence does. Let us try and see is the same situation with the door left open.
With heavy phone use the telling thing is not the hours. It is what happens when the phone is out of reach, and whether the checking feels urgent rather than enjoyable.