Depression Explanation

• What does the cognitive approach emphasise ?

  • How thinking shapes our behaviour
  • How irrational thoughts lead to mental disorder
• Why is the cognitive approach the most appropriate to explain depression?

  Depression is characterised by negative irrational thinking and cognitive approach emphasises thinking
• What does the A stand for in Ellis‘ ABC model ?

  • Activating event
  • E.g. you get fired / a friend isn’t talkative
• What does the B stand for in Ellis‘ ABC model ?

  • Belief - may be irrational or rational
  • E.g. (rational) the company was overstaffed or (irrational) I was sacked because they don‘t like me / (rational) they must’ve had a bad day or (irrational) they don’t like me
• What does the C stand for in Ellis‘ ABC model ?

  • Consequence - irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy emotion (depression)
  • (Rational) feel sympathy for friend , (irrational) feel worthless / fall out
• What is mustabatorty thinking?

  • source of the irrational belief that certain things must be true for an individual to be happy
• What did Ellis identify about mustabatory thinking?

  3 most important irrational beliefs:

  • I must be approved of / accepted by people I find important
  • I must do well or I’m worthless
  • the world must give me happiness or I will die

  these need to be challenged in order for mental healthiness to prevail
• What is Beck’s cognitive theory of depression?

  some people are cognitively more vulnerable to developing depression
• What are the 3 factors that create a vulnerability to depression?

  
  

  • negative self-schemas
  • Faulty information processing,
  • The negative triad.
• What are negative self schemas ?

  • a package of info we hold about ourselves
  • used to interpret the world - therefore negative self-schemas mean will interpret all information about ourselves negatively
  • acquired in childhood+ activated in conditions resembling those in which they were learned
• What is faulty information processing ?

  • cognitively biased (this means to have automatic negative and irrational thoughts)
  • more prone to depression
  • once depressed, these thoughts make it difficult to get better
• what are the three cognitive distortions (faulty info processing) ?

  • Selective abstraction
  • Overgeneralisation
  • Minimisation
• What is selective abstraction?

  drawing conclusions on the basis of one element of a situation, and ignoring all others
• What is overgeneralisation ?

  making vast, sweeping statements based on a tiny event or occurrence
• What is minimisation / magnification?

  • minimisation =tendency to under emphasise positive events.
  • Magnification = blowing an event out of proportion.
• What is a negative triad ?

  Negative views about the world lead to negative views about oneself which lead to negative views about the future which leads to negative views about the world etc.
• The negative triad:

  Negative schemas and cognitive biases maintain the negative triad - a pessimistic and irrational view of three key elements in a personal belief system
• Strength - research support for the role of irrational thinking

  • Bates (1999) - when depressed participants who were given negative automatic-thought statements, they became more and more depressed, supporting the view that negative thinking leads to depression.
  • Cohen et al (2019) - tracked 473 adolescents' development and found that early cognitive vulnerability predicted later depression
  • the idea of cognitive vulnerability is therefore useful in clinical practice
• Weakness for research support :

  • proves there is a link between negative thoughts and depression
  • But does not give a cause - Beck's idea is a partial explanation
  • Therefore, people with maladaptive cognitive processes are at greater risk of developing mental disorders because of a possible genetic predisposition.
  • The cognitive model is not a good explanation for all depressive phenomena
• weakness - blames patient not situation

  • responsibility for the depression and recovery rests with the individual
  • may lead the client or therapist to overlook situational factors - e.g. the impact of life events contributing to the disorder.
  • Therefore, this approach only focuses on the thought processes and will not deal with situational factors that may be the root cause.
• Weakness - Ellis’ model only explains reactive depression

  • reactive depression is where it is triggered by negative activating effects
  • However, in many cases, it‘s not obvious what triggers depression
  • Ellis' model is less useful in explaining this as it can only explain some cases of depression, not all
• Weakness - alternative explanations:

  • biological approach to understanding mental disorders suggest that genes and neurotransmitters may cause depression
  • Zhang (2005)- lower levels of serotonin in depressed people, and a gene has been found related to this (which has found to be 10 times more common in people with depression)
  • The success of drug treatment does suggest a neurotransmitter is responsible.
  • The Diathesis stress model
• What is the diathesis stress model ?

  • suggests a genetic vulnerability to depression
  • these people are more prone to the effects of living in a negative environment which leads to irrational thinking.
• Strength - RWA - screening :

  • assessing cognitive vulnerability in young people most at risk of developing depression means they can be monitored
  • This understanding can be applied in CBT to alter cognitions underlying depression
  • making someone more resilient to life events, meaning the idea of cognitive vulnerability is useful in clinical practice
• Strength - RWA - treatment

  • both methods (screening) have been usefully applied in the treatment programme CBT
  • This consistently has been shown to be the best treatment for depression
  • If depression is alleviated by challenging irrational thinking- then this suggests the irrational thoughts had a role in the depression developing in the first place