The cognitive approach to explaining depression

• Cognitive approach?

  Cognitive approach: Depression is due to irrational thoughts, resulting from maladaptive internal mental processes.

  Beck's negative triad
• Cognitive psychologists use a term called a schema?

  Schemas are mental frameworks/ expectations based on experience.

  -Schemas allow us to quickly process large amounts of sensory

  information and make automatic assumptions and responses. -Negative schemas result in automatically negative cognitive biases.
• What are the two cognitive explanations of depression?

  -Becks negative triad

  -Ellis's ABC Model
• Who created the negative triad?

  Aaron Beck argued people who are depressed have three types of schema with an automatic negative bias he called this the negative triad
• What is the negative triad?

  Negative triad: Three Schemas with a persistent automatic

  negative bias.

  --The Self: Aka self-schemas, feeling "inadequate or unworthy."

  --The World: Thinking people are "hostile or threatening."

  --The Future: Thinking "things will always turn out badly."

  -This can lead to avoidance, social withdrawal and inaction

  -The negative triad develops in childhood but provides the

  framework for persistent biases in adulthood, leading to

  Cognitive distortions, perceiving the world inaccurately.
• What are cognitive distortions?

  Cognitive distortions:

  -Overgeneralisation: One negative experience results in an

  assumption that the same thing will always happen.

  -Selective abstraction: Mentally filtering out positive

  experiences and focusing on the negative
• Who created the ABC model?

  Albert Ellis used something he called the ABC model to explain how someone with depression responds to stress, adversity and unpleasant events in a way that leads to unhealthy emotions
• What is Ellis's ABC Model?

  Ellis's ABC model

  A: Activating event. It can be anything that happens to

  someone. (large or small)

  B: Belief. For people without depression beliefs about A are

  rational. People with depression have irrational beliefs.

  C: Consequence. Rational beliefs lead to positive consequences; irrational beliefs lead to negative C
• What is mustabatory thinking - ABC model?

  Mustabatory thinking: The consequence of not accepting we

  don't live in a perfect world.

  -"There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy." - Ellis.

  -The fact that we fail to achieve unrealistic goals, other people

  don't behave the way we want them to, or an unexpected

  event happens and ruins our plans, leads to disappointment.
• Evaluation - Practical applications

  -The cognitive explanation can be praised for having practical applications:

  -This means that 'Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy' (CBT), which aims to change the way people think, has generally done well in outcome studies.

  -For example, March et al (2007) found CBT was just as effective as drugs in treating depression of patients.

  -This is positive as it suggests the approach has been useful in developing treatments that are effective in addressing depression.
• Evaluation - Not determinist

  -However, a problem is that the approach may be seen as 'inhumane' because it is not determinist:

  -This means that, unlike the biological approach for example, which argues mental illness is caused by genes which are out of a person's conscious control, the cognitive approach suggests the depression is a result of a person's thinking which they can control.

  -For example, it argues that recovery from depression requires the patient to change the way they think.

  -This is a problem because it may be unhelpful to place a large burden of blame on a person already prone to negative thinking.