What

• Aaron Beck believed that depressed individuals feel as they do because their thinking is biased towards negative interpretations of the world, and they lack a perceived sense of control
• The cognitive approach to explaining depression looks at our 'mental processes' (thoughts, attention, perceptions) and how they affect our behaviour
• Cognitive Psychologists look at how irrational thinking (cognition) leads the patient to suffer from depression.
•  Beck (1967) explains depression as a  vulnerability that can be caused by the person's cognition (the way they think) and their negative schemas.
• Beck suggested there were 3 parts to cognitive vulnerability:

  • faulty information processing
  • negative self-schemas
  • the negative triad