Cognitive approach - depression - beck and ellis

• Beck’s Negative triad 


  • Beck believed that depressed individuals feel as they do because their thinking is biased towards negative interpretations of the world
  • He also stated that they lack a perceived sense of control
• Negative schema:

  • Negative schema – a tendency to adopt a negative view of the world
  • Depressed people have acquired a negative schema during childhood
  • These negative schemas (e.g. expecting to fail) are activated whenever the person encounters a new situation (e.g. an exam) that is similar to the situation in which these schemas were learnt.
• Negative schema:

  • Negative schemas lead to systematic cognitive biases in thinking
  • Therefore, the person has a negative outlook on all situations that occur in their life
  • E.g. the individual over-generalises, drawing sweeping conclusions about themselves/self-worth based on one small piece of negative feedback
• The Negative Triad:

  • Negative schemas and cognitive biases maintain the negative triad, which leads to depression.

  The negative triad includes a negative view of:

  • The self – E.g. ‘I am just plain undesirable, what is there to like? I’m unattractive and seem to bore everyone.’
  • The world– E.g. ‘the world is a cold hard place’. This creates the impression there is no hope anywhere.
  • The future – E.g. ‘I am always going to be on my own,

  there is nothing that is going to change this.’
• Ellis’ ABC Model:Albert Ellis proposed that the key to mental disorders such as depression lay in irrational beliefs.

  • A refers to an activating event (e.g. you get fired at work).
  • B is the belief, which may be rational or irrational (e.g. ‘The company was overstaffed’ or ‘I was sacked because they've always had it in for me’).
  • C is the consequence – rational beliefs lead to healthy emotions (e.g. acceptance) whereas irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy emotions (e.g. depression).
• Musturbatory Thinking:

  • The source of irrational beliefs (the B in his ABC model) lies in musturbatory thinking

  – thinking that certain ideas or assumptions MUST be true in order for an individual to be happy.

  • For example:
  • I MUST be approved or by people I find important
  • I MUST do well or very well, or I am worthless
  • The world MUST give me happiness
• AO3:

  • The view that depression is linked to irrational thinking is supported by research
  • Hammen and Krantz (1976) found that depressed participants made more errors in logic when asked to interpret written material than non-depressed participants.
  • However, just because there is a link between negative thoughts and depression it does not mean that negative thoughts cause depression
  • Someone may first become depressed, then develop a negative way of thinking as a result, rather than the other way round.
  • Therefore, irrational thinking may be the RESULT of being depressed
• AO3:

  • One strength of the cognitive approach is that it suggests it is the client who is responsible for their disorder.
  • This gives the client the power to change the way things are.
  • However, this can also be seen as a limitation of the cognitive approach
  • It may lead the client or therapist to overlook situational factors
  • because the cognitive approach for example not considering how life events or family problems may have contributed to the mental disorder
  • The CA views disorder as simply in the client’s mind and result of their negative thinking
• AO3

  • One strength of the cognitive explanation for depression is that it can be applied to CBT (a form of therapy for depression)
  • CBT is consistently found to be the best treatment for depression, especially when used alongside drug treatment
  • CBT attempts to tackle irrational thoughts in the patient.
  • Therefore, if CBT is successful in treating depression, then this suggests that the irrational thoughts played a role in the depression in the first place.
• AO3:

  • A limitation of the cognitive approach is that what it claims are irrational thoughts may in fact be rational
  • Alloy and Abrahmson (1979) suggest that those with depression are realists and tend to see things for what they are
  • So it is not the depressed individuals who have unrealistic and irrational thoughts
  • This means that some ‘irrational’ beliefs may simply seem irrational by others rather than

  actually being irrational