The Cognitive approach to explaining depression (7)

Beck’s negative triad (1)

American psychologist Beck (1967) took a cognitive approach to explaining why some people are more vulnerable to depression than others.

 

This approach suggests to that it is a persons cognitions that create this vulnerability (the way they think).

Beck suggested three parts to this cognitive vulnerability.

Beck’s negative triad (2)

Faulty information processing

People with depression tend to focus on the negative aspects of a situation and ignore the positives.

 

People with depression also tend towards ‘black and white thinking’ where something is either all bad or all good, so absolutist thinking where small problems are blown out of proportion.

Beck’s Negative triad (3)

Negative Self-Schema

A schema is a package of ideas and information developed through experience. It acts as a mental framework for the interpretation of sensory information.

 

The self schema is the package of information people have about themselves.

People use schema to interpret the world, so if a person has a negative schema they interpret all information about themselves in a negative way.

Beck’s negative triad (4)

The negative triad

 

Beck suggested that a person develops a dysfunctional view of themselves because of three elements of negative thinking that occur naturally.

 

These three elements are called the negative triad. When a person is depressed, then negative thoughts about the world, the future and oneself are the uppermost.

 

Negative view of the world = this creates the impression that there is no hope anywhere. 

 

Negative view of the future = an example would be ‘there isn’t much chancy that the economy will really get better’, such thoughts reduce hopefulness and enhance depression

Negative view of the self = for example thinking ‘I am a failure’, such thoughts enhance any existing depressive feelings because they confirm the existing emotions of low self esteem.

A03 - research support

There is existence of supporting research. ‘Cognitive vulnerability’ refers to ways of thinking that may predispose a person to becoming depressed, for example faulty information processing, negative self schema and the cognitive triad.

 

In a review Clark and `beck concluded that not only were these cognitive vulnerabilities more common in people with depressurised but they preceded the depression.

 

This was confirmed in a more recent prospective study by Cohen, they tracked the development of 273 adolescents, regularly measuring cognitive vulnerability.

It was found that cognitive vulnerability predicated later depression. Which shows that there is an association between cognitive vulnerability and depression

A03 - inconsistent research findings

Becks Theory would predict that high self criticism and low self esteem (both measures of negative self beleifs) in early adolescents should predict depression in later adolescents.

 

However Gittins and Hunt, found that self-criticism and depression were unrelated. They also found that although self-esteem and depression were related, depression appeared first and was therefore probably not the result of low self-esteem.

This means that cognitive vulnerability may not actually lead to depression as Beck believed

Ellis’s ABC model (1)

Another American psychiatrist, suggested a different cognitive explanation of depression.

 

He proposed that good mental health is the result of rational thinking, defined as thinking in ways that allow people to be happy and free from pain.

 

To Ellis, conditions like anxiety and depression (poor mental health) result from irrational thoughts. Ellis defined irrational thoughts not as illogical or unrealistic thoughts, but as any thoughts that interfere with us being happy and free from pain.

Ellis used the ABC model to explain how irrational thoughts effect our behaviour and emotional state.

Ellis’s ABC model (2)

A - Activating event

 

Ellis focused on situations in which irrational thoughts are triggered by external events.

According to Ellis we get depressed when we experience negative events and these cause irrational beliefs. Events such as failing an important test of ending a relationship might cause such irrational beliefs.

Ellis’s ABC model (3)

B - Beliefs

 

Ellis identified a range of irrational belief's. ‘Masturbation’ is the belief that we must always success or achieve perfection.

 

‘I can’t stand it it is’ is the belief that Is a major disaster whenever something does not go smoothly.

 

Utopianism is the belief that life is always meant to be fair.

 

C - Consequences

When an activating event creates irrational belief's there are emotional and behavioural consequences. For example, if a person believes that they must always succeed and then fails at something this can cause depression.

A03 - real world application in the psychological treatment of depression

Ellis’s approach to cognitive therapy is called rational and emotive behaviour therapy or REBT. The idea of REBT is that, by vigorously arguing with a depressed person, a therapist can alter the irrational beliefs that are making them unhappy.

 

There is some evidence to support the idea that REBT can both change negative beliefs and relieve the symptoms of depression (David)

This means that REBT has real world value

A03 - reactive and endogenous depression

It only explains reactive depression and not endogenous depression.

 

There seems to be no doubt that depression is often triggered by life events - what Ellis would call ‘activating events’. Such cases are sometimes called reactive depression.

 

How we respond to negative life events also seems to be partly the result of our beliefs.

 

However many cases of depression are not traceable to life events and it is not obvious what leads the person to become depressed at a particular time .

This type of depression is called endogenous depression. Ellis’s ABC model is less useful to for explaining endogenous depression. This means that Ellis’s model can only explain some cases of depression and is only a partial explanation