Depression and prospection

Objectives Prospection, the mental representation of possible futures, is usually adaptive. When it goes awry, however, it disrupts emotion and motivation. A negative view of the future is typically seen as one symptom of depression, but we suggest that such negative prospection is the core causal element of depression. Here, we describe the empirical evidence supporting this framework, and we explore the implications for clinical interventions. Methods We integrate several literatures: Using the database PsycInfo, we retrieved empirical studies with the keywords prospection, prediction, expectation, pessimism, mental simulation, future‐thinking, future‐directed thinking, foresight, and/or mental time travel, in conjunction with depression, depressed, or depressive. Results Three kinds of faulty prospection, taken together, could drive depression: Poor generation of possible futures, poor evaluation of possible futures, and negative beliefs about the future. Depressed mood and poor functioning, in turn, may maintain faulty prospection and feed a vicious cycle. Future‐oriented treatment strategies drawn from cognitive‐behavioural therapy help to fix poor prospection, and they deserve to be developed further. Conclusions Prospection‐based techniques may lead to transdiagnostic treatment strategies for depression and other disorders. Practitioner points Faulty prospection may be the core process underlying depression. Three general problems of prospection, taken together, could drive depression: Poor generation of possible futures, poor evaluation of possible futures, and negative beliefs about the future. Faulty prospection can be helped using future‐oriented treatment strategies from cognitive‐behavioural therapy, and basic research on prospection points to additional future‐oriented clinical strategies for alleviating depression. More research is needed to determine whether prospection drives depression, and whether future‐focused interventions are more effective than those focused on the past and present.