Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan 1959-

PERSONAL:

Born 1959; married; children: one son.Education: Yale University, B.A.; University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D., 1986.

ADDRESSES:

Home—CT. Office—Department of Psychology, Yale University, Box 208205, New Haven, CT 06520-8205. E-mail—Susan.Nolen-Hoeksema@yale.edu.

CAREER:

Stanford University, Stanford, CA, faculty, 1986-95; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, professor of psychology and director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, 1995-2004; Yale University, New Haven, CT, professor of psychology, 2004—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Outstanding Academic Book Award, Choice, 1992, for Sex Differences in Depression;Excellence in Research Award, University of Michigan; Early Career Award and Leadership Award, both from American Psychological Association; has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and other foundations.

WRITINGS:

Sex Differences in Depression, Stanford UniversityPress (Stanford, CA), 1990.

Abnormal Psychology, McGraw-Hill (Boston, MA), 1998, 4th edition, 2007.

Clashing Views on Abnormal Psychology: A Taking Sides Custom Reader, Dushkin/McGraw-Hill (Guilford, CT), 1998.

(With Judith Larson) Coping with Loss, Erlbaum (Mahwah, NJ), 1999.

(With Edward E. Smith and Daryl J. Bem)Fundamentals of Psychology, Harcourt College Publishers (Fort Worth, TX), 2001.

Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Overthinking and Reclaim Your Life, Henry Holt(New York, NY), 2003.

Eating, Drinking, Overthinking: The Toxic Triangle of Food, Alcohol, and Depression—and How Women Can Break Free, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Handbook of Depression,edited by I.H. Gotlib and C.L. Hammen, Guilford (New York, NY), 2002. Contributor to professional journals, including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Abnormal Psychology,and Cognitive Therapy and Research. Editor, with others,Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, Volume 1.

SIDELIGHTS:

Psychology professor Susan Nolen-Hoeksema has become known for her research into depression and how it differs between genders. She wrote on this subject in her first book, Sex Differences in Depression, as well as in the more recent Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Overthinking and Reclaim Your Life and Eating, Drinking, Overthinking: The Toxic Triangle of Food, Alcohol, and Depression—and How Women Can Break Free.The latter two are works that are less academic in nature and more suitable for general audiences.

In Women Who Think Too Much, Nolen-Hoeksema hypothesizes that a central reason why women are twice as likely as men to become depressed is that they overthink—or overruminate on—the causes and possible solutions of the difficulties in their lives, which results in a lack of action to improve their situations. "Unfortunately, women can get stuck in negative emotions, caught in a downward spiral of hopelessness and immobility," as Hara Estroff Marano explained it in aPsychology Today article. Not only does this make problems appear worse to women than they actually are, but it also tends to cause women to devise unhelpful, negative solutions, rather than positive ones. Nolen-Hoeksema attempts to offer ways for women to break out of this counterproductive trap. While pointing out that the text at times gets a bit too scholarly for the average reader, Douglas C. Lord concluded in a Library Journal review that, "ultimately, this laudable and thorough work will ease the discomfort of many."

In a related title, Eating, Drinking, Overthinking,Nolen-Hoeksema declares that eating disorders and alcoholism are tied together with overthinking in a "toxic triangle" that exacerbates depression in women.Library Journal contributor Barbara M. Bibel felt this particular book offers no new revelations, "although the Toxic Triangle model may be new."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, February 15, 2003, Douglas C. Lord, review of Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Overthinking and Reclaim Your Life, p. 158; November 15, 2005, Barbara M. Bibel, review of Eating, Drinking, Overthinking: The Toxic Triangle of Food, Alcohol, and Depression—and How Women Can Break Free,p. 88.

Psychology Today, April 1, 2003, Hara Estroff Marano, "Trapped in Reflection," review of Women Who Think Too Much.

Publishers Weekly, November 14, 2005, review ofEating, Drinking, Overthinking, p. 63.