Argues depression is due to irrational thoughts from maladaptive internal mental processing
Beck's Negative Triad
3 Schemas with persistant automatic negative bias
The Self - feeling unworthy
The World - thinking people are hostile
The Future - things will always turn out bad
Proposed to develop during childhood, leading to cognitive distortions
Ellis' ABC Model
Thinking process
Activating Event - trigger
Beliefs - irrational
Concequences - negative
Mustabatory Thinking
Thinking the world is a certain way ultimately leading to disappointment
(+) A03: Grazoli + Terry
Assessment of thinking style of 65 Women before and after giving birth
Found that women with negative thinking were more likely to develop post partum depression, supporting faulty thinking
(-) A03: Bipolar Depression
People with bipolar depression have positive thinking manic phases, hindering Beck's explanation being due to the negative schemas, which are resistant to change
(-) A03: Assumptions
Cognitive explanations are based on assumptions that the thoughts are irrational, depression could be a reasonable response to challenges they face e.g. poverty
