Neal has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. He interprets negative stressful events using a pessimistic explanatory style. This explanatory style creates a hopeless, depressed state, which then hampers the way he thinks and acts, causing more negative stressful events. Neal's depression is likely due to a:

Answer: Vicious cycle

Explanation: Unfortunately, this is a vicious cycle that repeats indefinitely on the loop back principle. When something bad happens, we experience it as immediate stress, but the question is how it will affect our overall perception of life, as is the case with Neal. If we use a pessimistic lifestyle perception based on one or a couple stressful events, then we have created a life attitude that will be negative, pessimistic. That way, even when something that is not negative is pessimistic, our perception will treat it as something negative, and we send such a message, that is, energy.

That energy comes back to us as feedback loop, and whenever we want to achieve something or when we put in some effort, that feedback will stop us from reaching our goal. Our pessimistic energy and attitude will always condition the outcome of our action. The vicious circle always goes forward and feeds on what we provide to it as food, our energy, and it is, in fact, a circle that does not strive for balance, it is a circle which we manage by our perception.