Explanations of depression

• What is depression?

  A mood disorder where an individual feels sad and/or lack interest in their usual activities.
• What are some behavioural characteristics of depression?

  • Reduced or increased activity levels
  • Sleep more or less
  • Reduced or increased appetite
• What are some emotional characteristics of depression?

  • Sadness
  • Loss of interest in usual hobbies and activities
  • Anger - towards self or others
• What are some cognitive characteristics of depression?

  • Negative thoughts: negative self-concept, negative view of the world and expect things to turn out badly. They are irrational (i.e., they do accurately reflect reality).
• What is Beck's negative triad?

  Beck believed that depressed individuals feel as they do because their thinking is biased towards negative interpretations of the world.
• What are the 2 aspects of depressed individuals in Beck's negative triad?

  Depressed people having a:

  • Negative schema
  • Negative triad
• What is Beck's belief about depressed individuals having a negative schema?

  Depressed people have acquired a negative schema during childhood - a tendency to adopt a negative view of the world.

  • This may be caused by a variety of factors - e.g., parental and/or peer rejection.

  These negative schemas are activated when an individual encounters a new situation that resembles the original conditions in which these schemas are learned.
• What is Beck's belief about depressed individuals having a negative triad?

  Negative schemas maintain the negative triad. This is an irrational view if three key elements: self, world and future.

  
• What is Ellis' ABC Model?

  A refers to an activating event (e.g., you get fired from 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 health emotions (e.g., acceptance) whereas irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy emotions (e.g., depression).
• What is the aspect of depressed people in Ellis' ABC Model?

  Musturbatory thinking
• What is Ellis' belief about depressed individuals having musturbatory thinking?

  The source of irrational belief lies in musturbatory thinking - thinking that certain ideas must be true in order for an individual to be happy.

  • E.g., I must be approved or accepted by people i find important.
• What is a strength of the cognitive approach to explaining depression?

  Blames the client rather than situational factors (the client is "responsible" for their depression)

  • This placing emphasises on the client is a good thing because it gives the client the power to change the way things are not.

  COUNTERARGUMENT: However, this stance has limitations.

  • It may lead the client or therapist to overlook situational factors (for example, not considering how life events or family problems may be contributed to the disorder.

  The strength of the approach therefore lies in its focus on the client's mind and recovery, but other aspects of the client's environment and life may also need to be considered.
• What is a strength of the cognitive approach to explaining depression?

  Practical application

  • CBT is consistently found to be the best treatment for depression.
  • The usefulness of CBT as a therapy supports the effective of the cognitive approach - if depression is alleviated by challenging irrational thinking, then this suggests such thoughts had a role in depression in the first place.
• What is a limitation of the cognitive approach to explaining depression?

  Irrational beliefs may be realistic (they may simply seem irrational)

  • Alloy and Abramason suggest that depressive realists tent to see things for what they are (with normal people tending to view the world through rose-coloured glasses).
  • They found that depressed people gave more accurate estimates of the likelihood of a disaster than 'normal' controls and called this the sadder but wiser effect.
  • These doubts about whether irrational thinking is really irrational raises questions about the valur of the cognitive approach.
• What is a limitation of the cognitive approach to explaining depression?

  Alternative explanations - reductionist (as it ignores other factors)

  • The biological approach would argue that genes and neurotransmitters may cause depression
  • For example, research supports the role of low levels of neurotransmitter serotonin in depressed people and has also found that a gene related to this is 10 times more common in people with depression.
  • The success of drug therapies from treating depression suggest that neurotransmitters do play an important part.
  • At the very least a diathesis-stress approach might be advisable, suggesting that individuals with a genetic vulnerability for depression are more prone to the effects of living in a negative environment, which then leads to negative thinking.
  • The existence of alternative approaches suggest that depression can’t be explained by the cognitive approach alone.