Depression

• Depression is characterized by a low mood or loss of pleasure in activities
• Unipolar and bipolar depression are the main types of depression.
• Match the DSM category with its description:

  Major Depressive Disorder ↔️ Severe but often short-term depression

  Persistent Depressive Disorder ↔️ Long-term or recurring depression

  Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder ↔️ Childhood temper tantrums

  Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder ↔️ Mood disruption during menstruation
• Emotional characteristics of depression include lowered mood, feeling worthless, and lack of pleasure
• The cognitive approach suggests emotional problems result from irrational thinking.
• What are the two key cognitive theories for explaining depression?

  Beck’s triad and Ellis’s ABC model
• Aaron Beck suggested that there is a cognitive explanation for why some people are more vulnerable to depression
• Faulty information processing is one part of Beck’s cognitive vulnerability.
• Steps in Beck’s negative triad

  1️⃣ Negative view of self

  2️⃣ Negative view of the world

  3️⃣ Negative view of the future
• A self-schema is a package of ideas we have about ourselves
• Beck found that depressed people tend to focus on the negative aspects of a situation.
• Good mental health is the result of rational thinking
• Irrational beliefs are illogical or unrealistic thoughts that interfere with happiness.
• Steps in Ellis’s ABC model

  1️⃣ Activating event

  2️⃣ Belief

  3️⃣ Consequence
• CBT is the most used treatment for depression in clinical psychology.
• In Beck’s cognitive therapy, automatic negative thoughts are challenged about the world, future, and the self
• REBT extends the ABC model to include dispute and effect.
• Behavioural activation encourages depressed patients to engage in enjoyable activities
• Cognitive Approach: Beck AO3: Strength:

  • One strength of this is that there is a myriad of research which corroborates the idea that depression is associated with faulty information processing.
  • Grazioli and Terry (2000) assessed pregnant volunteers for cognitive vulnerability and depression before and after birth.
  • They then found that cognitively vulnerable women are more likely to develop postnatal depression.
  • This idea supports the notion of Beck’s theory that faulty information processing, Negative self-schemas, and the negative triad work together to elucidate feelings of negative thinking.