Depression

• Depression is a category of mood disorders, which is often divided into two main types: unipolar depression or bipolar depression (or manic depression).
• All forms of depressive disorders are characterised by cognitive, emotional and behavioural changes that effect a person’s functioning.
• Ellis’ (1962) cognitive theory sees irrational thinking as the root cause of maintaining a depressed state. He used the ABC model to show this.

  A: activating event

  B: beliefs

  C: consequences
• Beck’s(1967) cognitive theory is an explanation of why some people are more vulnerable to depression from a cognitive perspective. The explanation argues that a person’s cognitions create a vulnerability.
• The components of Beck’s theory are negative self schemas, negative triad and faulty information processing.
• Negative self-schemas are the result of early experiences which cause us to interpret all the information about ourselves negatively.
• Negative triad is a negative and irrational view of ourselves, our future and the world around us. Beck claimed cognitive biases and negative self-schemas maintain the negative triad.
• Faulty information processing can shape the attention a person focuses on certain events or thoughts. Beck stated that people with depression pay selective attention to things that confirm what they already know. This failure to pay attention properly is known as faulty information processing.
• The negative triad consists of: negative view of self (“I’m a failure”), world (”the world is a cold, hard place”), future (“things will never get better”).
• Ellis believes humans can think their way out of distress with rational emotive behaviour therapy. He uses the DEF theory to show this.

  D: debating and disputing beliefs

  E: effective beliefs

  F: (new)functional emotions and behaviours.
• Aspects/phases of Beck’s CBT: Behavioural activation- investigate the barriers to engaging with activities, intention is to reengage with these; Graded task assignment- develop goals which are increasingly demanding for homework; Negative thought capturing- recognise and capture negative/ irrational thoughts and actively challenge them to develop more rational ones.
• Negative thought capturing and challenging is when there is a negative thought that is challenged and becomes either a balanced thought or even a positive thought. CBT aims for balanced.
• Strengths of CBT: lots of supporting evidence, cost-effective, brief, evidence to suggest it’s as effective as antidepressant.
• Limitations of CBT: lack of effectiveness for severe cases and those with learning disabilities (there is evidence that opposes this), not much long-term effectiveness.