Psychopathology - treating depression

• Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)


  The most commonly used psychological treatment for depression
• CBT


  • Based on both cognitive and behavioural techniques
  • Aims to deal with thinking, such as challenging negative thoughts
  • Aims to deal with behaviour through behavioural activation
• CBT process


  1. Assessment to clarify patient's problems

  2. Jointly identify goals and plan

  3. Identify negative or irrational thoughts to challenge
• Irrational/dysfunctional thoughts


  Thoughts that are likely to interfere with a person's happiness, e.g. lead to depression
• CBT process


  1. Change negative and irrational thoughts

  2. Put more effective behaviours into place
• Beck's Cognitive Therapy


  Similar to Ellis's but most widely used in cases of depression
• Beck's Cognitive Therapy


  • Helps individual focus on automatic negative schemata (thoughts) and consider alternative ways of thinking
  • Aims to identify automatic thoughts about the world, the self and the future - the negative triad
  • Challenges these thoughts and tests the reality of negative beliefs
• Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT)


  • A type of cognitive therapy first used by Albert Ellis which focuses on resolving emotional and behavioural problems
  • Aims to change irrational beliefs to more rational ones
• REBT process


  1. Identify general and irrational beliefs

  2. Challenge these false beliefs through reality testing
• ABCDE model in REBT

  Dispute and Effect/effective
• REBT techniques


  1. Logical dispute - question the logic of thoughts

  2. Empirical dispute - seek evidence for thoughts
• REBT homework


  Patient identifies their own irrational beliefs and then proves them wrong
• CBT is the most commonly used psychological treatment for depression
• CBT is based on both cognitive and behavioural techniques
• Irrational/dysfunctional thoughts are thoughts that are likely to interfere with a person's happiness
• Beck's Cognitive Therapy helps individuals focus on automatic negative thoughts and consider alternative ways of thinking
• REBT aims to change irrational beliefs to more rational ones
• The central technique of REBT is to identify and dispute (challenge) irrational thoughts
• There is a vast amount of supportive evidence that CBT is an effective method of treating depression
• CBT may not be appropriate for all cases of depression, such as severe cases or those with learning disabilities
• CBT may overemphasise the importance of cognition and minimise the importance of social environment
• There are concerns over the long-term effectiveness of CBT, with high relapse rates