cognitive explnation

• Cognitive approach to explaining depression emphasises on:

  How thinking shapes our personal behaviour.​

  ​How irrational thinking leads to a mental disorder.​

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• Ellis’ ABC Model :​

  A - an activating event ​

  B - beliefs(rational or irrational, functional or dysfunctional)

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  C - consequences (according to Ellis, irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy emotional outcomes, including depression)
• Example for ABC model:

  A - e.g. you pass a friend in the corridor at school, and he/she ignores you, despite the fact you said ‘hello’

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  B - e.g. an irrational interpretation of the event might be that you think your friend dislikes you and never wants to talk to you again

  C - e.g. I will ignore my friend and delete their mobile number, as they clearly don’t want to talk to me
• Musturbatory thinking:​The belief by some individuals that they must absolutely meet often perfectionist goals in order to achieve success, approval, or comfort.​
• Beck’s Negative Triad (1967)

  Suggested cognitive explanation to why some people are more vulnerable to depression than others. He thought their thinking is biased towards negative interpretations of the world.​
• Three parts to this cognitive vulnerability​:

  1. faulty information processing​
  2. negative self-schemas​
  3. the negative triad ​
• Faulty Information processing (according to Beck):

  • People who are depressed make fundamental errors in logic​
  • They tend to selectively attend to the negative aspects of a situation and ignore the positive aspects​
• Negative self-schemas:

  • A self-schema is a package of ideas that we have about ourselves, developed in childhood.​
  • ​Depressed people have developed negative self-schemas and therefore they interpret all the information about themselves in a negative way.​
• A schema is a building block of knowledge, a ‘package’ of ideas and information that has developed with experience. 
• The negative triad:

  Beck built on the idea of maladaptive responses of people with depression, they become trapped in a cycle of negative thoughts​:

  • Negative view of the self (I am incompetent and undeserving)​
  • Negative view of the world (it is a hostile place)​
  • Negative view of the future (there will always be emotional pain)​
• There is good supporting evidence for the role of irrational thinking​:

  • Hammen and Kranzz (1976) found that depressed ppt made more errors in logic compared to non-depressed, when asked to interpret written material.​

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  However, this link doesn’t mean that irrational thoughts cause​

  depression. It may be depressed people develop negative thoughts​

  because of their depression.
• This approach blames the client for their disorder:

  • This is good in one sense as it gives the client power to change things.​
  • But it may lead the client or therapist to overlook situational factors that could be contributing to the disorder.​
  • The recovery lies in changing the clients mind and this might not be the cause of the disorder.
• There are real-world applications to this explanation:

  • Treatment in the form of CBT applies the explanation that faulty thinking causes the disorder.​
  • This is an effective treatment for disorders such as depression, especially when combined with drug treatment.
• This explanation fails to account for a biological basis for a disorder:

  • Role of genes / neurotransmitters​
  • An individual may have a genetic predisposition for depression and are more prone to the effects of living in a negative environment, which leads to faulty thinking, so a diathesis stress approach might be a better way to explain a disorder.​