Depression - The Cognitive Approach

• What does the cognitive approach suggest ?

  Depression is due to irrational thoughts, resulting from maladaptive internal mental processes
• What are schemas?

  Mental frameworks based on experience. Allow to quickly process large amounts of sensory info and make automatic assumptions and responses.
• What do negative schemas result in?

  Negative cognitive biases
• What is Beck's negative triad?

  3 schemas w/ persistent automatic negative bias.
• What are the 3 schemas in negative triad?

  1. The self - aka self schemas, feeling inadequate or unworthy
  2. The world - thinking people are hostile/threatening
  3. The future - things will always turn out badly
• What can the negative triad lead to?

  Avoidance, social withdrawal, inaction
• When does the negative triad develop and what does it do?

  Develops in childhood, provides framework for persistent biases in adulthood, leading to cognitive distortions (perceiving world inaccurately)
• What is overgeneralisation?

  One negative experience results in assuming that same thing will always happen
• What is selective abstraction?

  Mentally filtering out positive experiences and focusing on negative
• What is Ellis's ABC model?

  A - activating event ➡️ anything that happens to someone (small/large)

  B - belief ➡️ for people w/o depression, beliefs ab A are rational, w/ depression its irrational

  C - consequence ➡️ rational beliefs lead to positive c. Irrational beliefs lead to negative c.
• What is mustabatory thinking?

  The consequence of not accepting we don't live in perfect world. 3 musts that hold us back: I must do well, you must treat me well, world must be easy
• What happens when we fail to achieve unrealistic goals, other people don't behave how we want them to or unexpected event happens and ruins our plans?

  Disappointment
• What is a strength of this explanation regarding evidence?

  65 women were assessed of their thinking styles before giving birth, found those women w/ negative thinking styles = more likely to develop post partum depression. Supports idea that faulty thinking leads to depression
• What is a strength of the explanation regarding therapies?

  Cognitive theories that explain depression ➡️ highly effective cognitive therapies. CBT had effectiveness rate of 81% after 36 weeks of treatment = suggests underlying cognitive explanations are valid.
• What is a limitation of this explanation regarding assumption?

  Cognitive theories depend on assumption that person w/ depression thoughts are irrational. It could be depression is reasonable response to challenges they face (poverty, racism)
• How does Beck's CBT work? (2)

  1. Patient as a scientist - patient generates and tests hypotheses abt validity of irrational thoughts. When realise thought don't match reality, leads to change in schemas, then irrational thoughts discarded
  2. Thought catching - identifying irrational thoughts coming from neg. triad of schemas