Beck’s Negative Triad

• Beck’s negative triad

  Beck took a cognitive approach to explain why some people are more vulnerable to depression.
• Faulty Information Processing

  When depressed, people attend to the negative aspects of a situation and ignore positives. People tend to blow small problems out of proportion and think in black and white.
• Negative self schema

  Self schema is the package of information people have on themselves. If it’s negative they interpret all information about themselves in a negative way.
• The negative triad

  Beck suggested that a person develops a dysfunctional view of themselves because of three types of negative thinking that occur automatically, regardless of the reality that is happening at the time.
• The negative triad

  The negative triad include:

  • a negative view of the world - ‘the world is a cold, hard place'- gives the impression that there’s no hope.
  • negative view of the future - ‘no chance the economy gets better'- this reduces hopefulness and enhances depression.
  • negative view of self - 'I'm a failure' - enhances existing feelings of depression; they confirm the existing emotions of low self esteem.