Becks negative triad

Who was he?

Aaron beck (1967) was an American psychiatrist who took a cognitive approach to explaining why some people are more vulnerable to depression than others. In particular this approach suggests that it is a person’s cognitions that create this vulnerability i.e. the way they think. Beck suggested three parts to this cognitive vulnerability 

Faulty information processing

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

• For example, if I was depressed and won £1 million on the lottery I might focus on the negative that the previous week someone one £10 million  

• People with depression tend to think in ‘black and white’ where something is either all good or all bad 

Negative self schema

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

- A self-schema is the package of information people have about themselves 

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

The negative triad

Beck suggested that a person develops a dysfunctional view of themselves because of three elements of negative thinking that occur automatically, regardless of the reality of what is happening at the time.  

-These three elements are called the negative triad 

When a person is depressed, then negative thoughts about the world, the future and oneself are uppermost  

• Negative view of the world- an example would be ‘the world is a cold hard place’ - this creates the impression that there is no hope anywhere  

• Negative view of the future- an example would be ‘there isn’t much chance that the economy will really get better’ - such thoughts reduce any 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