Comparing Thinking Rumination and Defense Mechanisms in Patients Suffering from Major Depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders with Normal Individuals

The purpose of this research was to compare thinking rumination and defence mechanisms in individuals suffering from major depression disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder with normal persons. The descriptive research was acausal-comparison kind. The sample included 30 clinical depressed people (women), 30 clinical obsessive ones (16 women,14 men), and 60 unaffected people (45 women,15 men). The clinical sample was selected by purposive sampling method and normal sample was selected with purposive form and by screening method using MMPI questionnaire.The used instruments included thinking rumination questionnaire(RQ), defence mechanisms questionnaire (DSQ40) and MMPI 71 question questionnaire. For data analysis, the multivariate variance analysis (MANOVA) was used. The results showed that the amount of thinking rumination in depressed and compulsive group was more than the normal group (p<0/001). The amount of using immature defence style in affected groups was more than normal group (0/001) and the amount of using neurotic style in depressed people was also more than the compulsive (P<0/01) and normal group(p<0/001). Besides, the results showed that there is a significant diference among the three groups in Projection, Devaluation, Acting out, Somatization, Autistic fantasy, Splitting, Passive aggression, Displacement, Isolation, Suppression, Sublimation, Humor, Anticipation, Pseudo-altruism and Denial mechanisms (P<0/01). On the basis of research findings,thinking rumination and defence mechanisms have an important role in temperamental and anxiously disorders. The effort for reduction using thinking rumination and immature and neurotic styles, can be an important step to promote the patients`mental health.