You're allowed to be here, nobody says it's okay.It's not what you feared, and the ones who look fine were crawling inside too.

Nothing in the vault is about anger yet, so this rests on the old wisdoms and one man's day. An emperor wrote, nearly two thousand years ago, that he wasn't angry with a man. He only wanted him to go away. The anger was his to put down, and the distance was his to keep. The program says the same in its own words: when you're worked up, stop before you act. How sure: this rests on the traditions and the rooms, not on trials. The library has no study yet that treats anger and follows people afterwards.

This rests on the old wisdoms and one man's journal, not on trials.

Staying away from a thing takes the fear down right now. That is what it is for, and it is why the fear is back the next time: every dodge misses the one lesson that would end it, that the thing has changed or was never what you thought. Your attention can do something alike, finding the worst thing in a scene first and holding it longest. How sure: thin, and the readings say so. That staying away lowers fear in the moment is the DSM-5's own sentence, with no size behind it. That it keeps the fear alive is argued in Bandura's 1977 theory paper and in a narrative review by the fear-avoidance model's own developers, from older phobia work and lab studies of pain, not from a trial. In 291 bereaved adults, avoiding reminders of the loss predicted more depression a year on, but only within the first year of the loss, and it added little. A review's account of one bereavement study says going over it at the start predicted staying away at six months. On attention: 49 students with raised low-mood scores, eyes tracked over word pairs, then mood weekly for five weeks; those whose eyes stayed longer on negative words got worse (r = .42), though that is mood and not fear, and nothing was changed to see whether mood followed. On watching yourself in social fear: a lab experiment with 40 people found they rated more anxiety giving a speech about their own sensations than about their partner's; a review says self-focus increases anxiety and keeps it going; against that, a trial of an 8-week internet course (464 adults) found self-focused attention at week four did not predict symptoms, where safety behaviours and avoidance did. All of that is social fear, not everyday life. The trials of meeting the feared thing on purpose are not yet read into the vault. Experiential avoidance, the fear-avoidance model and extinction learning have no reading yet.

Early evidence. Not tested well yet. One part is split.

Going over it is turning over what went wrong, and why, and what it says about you, without getting to what to do next. It feels like working on the problem; the thinking stays abstract and the body stays braced. It runs on the trouble of letting a bad thought go, and on beliefs about your own thinking: that chewing on it helps, and that once it starts you cannot stop. The way out in the trials is to make it concrete, what exactly happened and what is the one next thing, and to notice the thought as a thought and let it pass. How sure: a mix. A meta-analysis of 29 trials found mindfulness-based cognitive therapy cut rumination by about half a standard deviation after treatment, mostly in depression, with the gain shrinking after three months and small against CBT. A trial of 121 people in GP practices found the concreteness exercise cut rumination more than relaxation at eight weeks, though not symptoms. One study found a mindfulness intervention lowered rumination and negative mood but did not change how either moved from day to day. The therapy built for rumination has only a pilot of 42 people behind it, with its developer among the therapists. That going over it predicts who falls into depression held in about 1,300 adults over a year and again in a one-year follow-up. Its links to sleep, to staying away and to pulling back from life rest on reviews of lab work and one bereavement study inside a review. The beliefs: two theory papers say beliefs and learned routines drive rumination; in 433 students over three months, worry held steadier in the half with stronger beliefs about their thinking, a survey and not a trial. No trial of changing the beliefs is read in. Postponing is described in a meta-analysis whose trials come mostly from the method's originator. Nothing here is a trial of a single move at this size.

Early evidence. Not tested well yet.

Hopelessness is the expectation that what you want will not come and that nothing you do will change that. In the theory it is built from evidence you gather yourself: go over it long enough and you have a mountain of proof that you might as well give up. Giving up is what it costs you: you stop starting things, and the stopped life then proves the forecast. When a trouble has gone round enough times, the working parts of solving it can go quiet too: no list of things you could do, no picking one, no trying it. How sure: thinner than most, and said plainly. The two readings on hopelessness are both reviews restating a theory: a narrative review by the rumination theory's author and her lab, whose own hypothesis it is that rumination builds the case for giving up, and a systematic review of 67 studies of the hopelessness theory whose definition lists slowed starting among the symptoms. Neither tests a link from hopelessness to pulling back. On a way through: a review by the same lab says in its abstract that rumination impairs problem solving, and says nothing on whether poor problem solving leads to pulling back from life. For the therapy built on that picture, a meta-analysis of 13 trials reports a mean effect of 0.34 or 0.83 depending on the model, with very high heterogeneity, and a later one of 30 randomised trials (3,530 people) found g = 0.79 across all trials but g = 0.34 in the 9 low-bias ones, with waiting lists doing most of the work and follow-up in three trials. Both measure depression only, and neither tests whether the gain comes from better problem solving. So they back the therapy working on depression, not a deficit it fixes. No paper on file defines or measures the deficit. Treat it as a working picture, not a finding. Loss of pleasure, the looser fit, has one reading, on pulling back from people, and says nothing on hopelessness.

Good evidence, not yet the strongest kind.

When company, or the things you used to do, stop giving you the lift they did, passing on them starts to make sense. The pulling back is what others notice; the wish for company often does not go away with it, so the quiet is lonely. How sure: thin, and about what goes with it more than about what undoes it. A selective review of social anhedonia in psychosis, depression, PTSD, eating disorders and autism says that across them people who take less pleasure from social contact then pull away and function worse, though loneliness often stays; that is the abstract's own summary, with no numbers, and the authors say study designs differ. A review of lab and survey work says low-mood ruminators knew what would help and were unwilling to try it, and another says rumination makes people less willing to do pleasant things. The hopelessness theory's definition lists slowed starting of actions among its symptoms, and the same lab suggests people who go over it build a case that they may as well give up and withdraw; both are theory restated in reviews, not tests. A review by that lab lists poor problem solving as something rumination causes and says nothing on whether it leads to pulling back. No paper on file defines or measures pulling back directly, and nothing on file tests whether a small contact or a small act undoes it. Feeling alone sits close by and has no unit of its own. In 229 Chicagoans aged 50 to 68 followed for five years, feeling lonelier one year went with a few more depressive symptoms the next (B = 0.18), and people with more social support were less lonely a year later (B = -0.66) though not less depressed; self-report, one county, an author manuscript not checked against the printed paper.

Early evidence. Not tested well yet.

Nothing on file is about grudges. What the vault has read is on the mind going over what went wrong, and holding it against someone looks like that from the inside: the same scene, the same verdict, no next step. In the readings, that going over is tied to the trouble of letting a bad thought go, and to being less willing to do the things that would help even when you know what they are. How sure: thin, and borrowed. Every reading here is about rumination, mostly in low mood, and none is about resentment. A review puts poor control of attention, the trouble letting go of a negative thought, at the root of rumination that will not stop; that is a model argued from the literature, not a trial. A review of lab and survey work says low-mood ruminators knew what would help and were unwilling to try it. On the way out: a trial of 121 people in GP practices found that making the thought concrete cut rumination more than relaxation did at eight weeks, though not symptoms; a meta-analysis of 29 trials found mindfulness-based cognitive therapy cut rumination by about half a standard deviation after treatment, mostly in depression, with the gain shrinking after three months. Nothing on file tests any of it on a grudge. Two of the three concepts under this word, how you read what just happened and reasoning your way to the answer you wanted, have no reading yet.

Early evidence. Not tested well yet.

Worry keeps a bad feeling steady so nothing can catch you by surprise; that is what it is for, and why it feels like work you cannot stop. Two beliefs run it: that worrying helps, and that once it starts you cannot stop. The first calls it up; the second keeps you braced against it, so you never try to put it down. Test the belief and the worry has less to run on. How sure: mixed, and said plainly. For saving worry for a set half hour: a meta-analysis of 7 randomised studies (999 people) found a small cut in daily worry time against just logging worries (d = 0.36) over one to four weeks, with no follow-up; a waitlist trial of 82 outpatients found worry fell more than waiting in the 47 with generalised anxiety and not in the 35 with health anxiety; and a four-arm online trial of 186 adults found the two postponement arms together no better than a diary-only control, with heavy dropout. The vault holds postponement as contested, and this piece says so. In that same online trial, people who tied the slot to an evening habit with an if-then plan reported worry periods about 15 minutes shorter than plain postponement; one test at the edge of significance, and nobody checked that the slot was kept. On the belief: in 433 students over three months, worry held steadier, and rumination fed later worry, in the half with stronger beliefs about their thinking; a survey, not a trial. In 206 people followed for a year after a cancer diagnosis, the belief that worry is uncontrollable and dangerous predicted anxiety a year on, though once the starting level was allowed for it added little. That the beliefs drive worry is argued in theory papers. Treatments that change the thinking style or step back from the reaction to worry could help, says a review of 19 studies with no pooled figure; the account of metacognitive therapy comes from a depression trial that did not measure worry. Worry and bad sleep go together at the level of the person, not the day (182 adults, seven days).

Early evidence. Not tested well yet.