Cognitive Therapy of Depression

Aaron T. Beck - 1921 (96 yrs. old.) American psychiatrist who is professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He was married in 1950 to Phyllis W. ________, who was the first woman judge on the appellate court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.


Automatic Thoughts - experienced streams of uncontrollable negative thoughts that seemed to pop up spontaneously


Cognitive Triad  - Negative views about the world —> Negative views about the future —> Negative views about oneself


The self – "I'm worthless and ugly" or "I wish I was different"


The world – "No one values me" or "people ignore me all the time“


The future – "I'm hopeless because things will never change" or "things can only get worse!"


Cognitive Distortions - 

  • Selective abstraction

  • Minimisation

  • Personalisation

  • Arbitrary inference

  • Magnification

  • Overgeneralization


Selective abstraction -  Drawing conclusions on the basis of just one of many elements of a situation. Example is you fail a quiz and you think that this will ruin your entire grade, when really the quiz was only worth 3% and you still have an entire course to ace. 


Minimisation -  Downplaying the importance of a positive thought, emotion or event. Example is when you failed a test worth 25% and you think that this will not impact your grade. 


Personalisation -  Attributing personal responsibility for events which aren't under a person's control.


Arbitrary inference -  Drawing conclusions when there is little or no evidence. For example, you believe that someone doesn’t like you without actual information to support that belief. 


Magnification -  "Making a mountain out of a molehill"-blowing things out of proportion. For example, when you make a small mistake and you think that you’ve made a really big one. 



Overgeneralization -  Making sweeping conclusions based on a single event. Sort of like selective abstraction except you generalize the experience to other events.  Another example is when you embarrassed yourself in public speaking and you now think that you will always embarrass yourself when speaking to anyone. 


Cognitive therapy of depression - is designed to identify and correct distorted conceptualizations and dysfunctional beliefs generally consists of 15 to 25 sessions at weekly intervals.