Cognitive approach: explaining and treating depression

Depression

According to the cognitive explanation, abnormality is caused by irrational and negative thought processes. How people perceive, reason and judge the world around them

Cognitive disorders are more evident in depression and there’s two main explanations Beck’s Negative Triad and Ellis’s ABC model

Beck’s negative thinking triad

Beck suggests that the negative triad stems from negative schemas such as loss of parent, criticism from parents and physical or mental abuse

Incudes Negative views on the World, themselves and the future

• Focusing on negative aspects of situations

• Overgeneralisation- Make general conclusions on events

• Personalisation- Negative feelings of others due to something you did

• Minimisation- Underplaying positive events

• Magnification- Exaggerating significance of events

• Selective abstraction- Ignore the positive conclusions

All aspects in maintaining cognitive bias

Extra: Shahar et al (2008)

Depression stemming from negative schemas

Sociotropic- Relate to close relationships and attachments of individuals and see themselves falling

Autonomous- Relate to personal achievements of others and see themselves as failing

Self critical- Relate to a person’s perceptions of their shortcomings

Ellis’s ABC Model

Proposed that depression was mainly the result of irrational beliefs about external events

A: Activation event

B: Beliefs

C: Consequences

Utopianism

The belief in or pursuit of a state in which everything is perfect, typically regarded as unrealistic or idyllic

Musturbatory thinking

Thinking that certain ideas or assumptions must be true in order for an individual to be happy

Evaluation points

Practical applications +

Incomplete -

Evidence support +

Allows differences +

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Focuses on the ‘here’ and ‘now’ issues instead of the causes of distress, when parts are clearly outlined they can be changed

Aim= to rationalise and challenge depressed patients’ irrational thinking as this can help remove the depressive states

CBT tries to simultaneously challenge the thinking and behaviour of the depressed patients

1. Identifying negative thinking patterns in depressed patients- must think positively so asked how they perceive themselves to the world, therapists use reality testing to test whether their negative beliefs are true

2. Challenging irrational thoughts of depressed patients- made aware of their negative views, so irrational views are replaced with more optimistic and rational beliefs

3. Skill acquisition and application- asked to do homework between sessions, vital in testing irrational beliefs against reality and putting new rational beliefs into practice

4. Follow up- invited to reflect on irrational thoughts and change them into rational thoughts

Evaluation points of CBT

Evidence support +

Narrow explanation -

Tackles route of issue +

therapist relationship not the therapy -