Susan Nolen-Hoeksema (1959–2013)
Randy Larsen
Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, one of the founding members of ARP and the first secretary/treasurer of our organization, passed away on Jan. 2, 2013. While many thought of Susan as a clinical psychologist, she saw herself more as a personality psychologist. Susan attended the Minary Center Conference in 1999 where a group of personality psychologists founded ARP. At the University of Michigan Susan was a member of the Personality Area, not the Clinical Area. At Yale, however, she was on the Clinical faculty. It is probably fair to say Susan did not see a clear line of demarcation between clinical and personality psychology. Her views about personality were more along the lines of a process approach than a trait approach. She was interested in how individual differences worked, how they came about, were maintained, or could be changed. She was curious about the processes that underlie personality and drive people into the abnormal range on various dimensions.
An example of this is her work on rumination, a topic that she put on the map. Susan viewed rumination as a tendency to focus on, and keep coming back to, the causes and consequences of some distressing event. Susan viewed rumination as a breakdown in the normal self-regulation of our thought processes, a breakdown that has emotional consequences. Instead of focusing on options or on solving problems, the ruminating person focuses on reliving the event, and their reaction to the event, over and over. This pattern of thinking prolongs the emotional effects of the distressing event and delays recovery. Susan’s work showed that a tendency to ruminate predicts several mental health problems, particularly depression. Susan also showed that this tendency toward rumination is higher in women, and partly explains gender difference in prevalence rates for depression, and why this gender difference emerges in adolescence.
Susan was also well known for her contributions to women’s issues in general, and to the role of women in science in particular. She was a fantastic role model for younger women, and was a popular though demanding mentor. She received a Leadership Award from the APA Committee on Women in Psychology. In her research Susan tackled topics important to women, such as eating disorders, health disparities, and depression. She wrote popular trade books so that lay women would have access to her research. Her most recent book, The Power of Women, which was published in 2010, turns things around and focuses on the unique mental strengths of women instead of their unique vulnerabilities. The book was widely reviewed and reactions were consensually positive. For example, Marty Seligman wrote “I’ve been waiting for a long time for a sensible, non-strident, evidence-based book about the strengths of women. This is it!” Never mind that Marty was Susan’s mentor at Penn 25 years ago, his description of the book also applies to Susan as well—sensible, non-strident, evidenced-based, and positive.
With Susan’s passing, the field of personality psychology has lost a generative, inspiring, and visionary member. More importantly, we have all lost a friend. I can hear Susan telling us, though, not to ruminate about it, and instead to focus on the problems we can solve, on the future, and on the positive aspects of life events, even this event. Susan would be the first to tell us that we could focus on how she was taken too early, at the height of her career, which would make us feel cheated or depressed. Or we could focus on all that she has done, her many lasting contributions, which would make us feel fortunate, even blessed that she was part of our community. How we think about her death, she would say, is really a choice, but a choice with emotional consequences. I prefer to think of Susan as an example of a life lived fully, full of dedication to her field, her students and colleagues, and her family.