Overgeneral Memory Retrieval an Ineffective Problem-Solving in Depressed Patients with Suicidal Ideation: implications for Therapy

An underpinning mechanism supported by empirical findings in the field of cognitive psychology emphasizes an association between memory retrieval and problem-solving (e.g. Williams & Hollan, 1981). Impaired access to sufficient specific information from the personal memory database results in ineffective problem-solving strategies, which in turn might lead to a failure in tackling stressful situations. That is, in order to solve a problem, one needs to have access to the information previously stored in a memory database. Shortage of data or lack of precise and specific material in this regard can cause failure in solving problems (including personal problems), and then result in hopelessness. Williams and Broadbent (1986) suggested that the tendency of people with parasuicidal thoughts to retrieve less specific autobiographical memories may precipitate a suicidal attempt. This probable relationship was later experimentally shown (Evans, Williams, O'Loughlin, & Howells, 1992; Goddard, Dritschel, & Burton, 1996, 1997; Sidley, 1997). In one previous research, we also found a significant correlation between autobiographical specificity retrieval and problem-solving effectiveness in depressed patients who had attempted suicide (Kaviani, Rahimi-Darabad & Naghavi, 2005). This phenomenon is explicable through the hierarchical model of "descriptions" (Norman & Bobrow, 1979). This theory describes autobiographical memory as a hierarchy, with more general information higher in the hierarchy ("top"), and more specific information lower in the hierarchy ("down"). In order to retrieve specific events from the past, one, in normal situation, tries to use a "top-down" procedure using higher level, general descriptions, as intermediate stepladder to access to the lower level, specific material (Reiser, Black, & Abelson, 1985; see Rubin, 1996, for a review). However, in response to a given context, depressed patients seem to be unable to move fluently through the autobiographical memory hierarchy, and thus to reach the sufficient level of specificity (see Williams, 1996, for a review). In this way, in virtue of the assumption that depressed people tend to use their "upper layer" memory as a database to produce solutions to their personal problems (and presumably, due to lack of specific information in this layer), it might not give rise to producing effective and productive problem-solving strategies. There is an array of studies that stress the role of over-general autobiographical memory recall in poor problem solving (Evans et al., 1992; Goddard et al., 1996, 1997, 2001; Kaviani et al., 2005). By this account, a memory search for a specific event in depressed mind would be prematurely aborted, as only the upper, general description level has been reached rather than the lower, specific level that consists of particular place, time, person and situation details.In a previous study (Kaviani et al., 2005), parasuicidal depressed patients retrieved overgeneral memories in response to positive, neutral and negative cue-words, and also produced impaired problem solving strategies. In line with explanations derived from previous studies by others (e.g., Williams & Broadbent, 1986; Evans et al., 1992; Kaviani et al., 2005), this in turn could exacerbate the severity of depression by itself resulting in a revolving cycle. By this account, this very vicious cycle continues over time to resonate powerfully, perhaps leading to a suicidal attempt. In fact, our previous study extended knowledge of the relationship between mood, suicidal behaviour, and cognitive functioning in a different cultural setting. However, we emphasised the necessity for further investigations to draw a more detailed picture of the complexity and extend these findings to go beyond any simple account. One main question might arise here asking if on the depression severity continuum starting from no suicidal ideation through suicidal ideation to suicidal attempt there is a cut-off line to identify those who are at suicidal risk. …