Depression characteristics and explanations

• Depression 


  Mood disorder which effects emotional state

  MDD: major depressive disorder

  occurs in 1 in 10 adults in the UK at any one time

  affects twice as many women as men

  most common in those who are 25-44

  average age for developing the illness is a person in their mid 20’s - although decreasing
• Emotional characteristic

  extreme sadness, tearfulness, depressed mood
• Emotional characteristic

  Loss of interest and pleasure in usual activities
• Emotional characteristic 


  Feelings of anger directed towards other or self
• Behavioural characteristic 


  Disturbed sleep patterns : insomnia/ increased
• behavioural characteristic


  changed activity levels : agitated or slow and lethargic
• Behavioural characteristic


  Disturbed appetite and weight change
• behavioural characteristic 


  Tiredness and loss of energy
• Cognitive characteristic 


  Negative self concept and low self esteem
• Cognitive characteristic 


  Negative expectations about life
• Cognitive explanations of depression : Ellis’ ABC model 


  irrational beliefs lead to depression

  A= activating event

  B= belief

  C= consequence

  rational beliefs lead to healthy emotions, irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy emotions
• Mustabatory thinking 


  Argued that the source of iraational beliefs comes from mustabatory thinking = where people think that certain assumptions must be true in order to be happy

  3 main ones =

  must be approved/accepted by people

  must do well or I am worthless

  world must give me happiness or I will die

  • people who think like this will be disappointed all the time
• Cognitive explanations of depression : Becks cognitive triad 


  Depression is the result of negative interpretations of the world
• Becks cognitive triad - schemas 


  Depressed people have a negative self schema , leads to beliefs and expectations that are pessimistic

  develops during childhood due to traumatic experience
• Confirmation bias And cognitive bias 


  Negative self schemas lead to a confirmation bias where we look to confirm our negative beliefs and not disprove them

  become prone to to making errors in their thinking - cognitive biases

  example : black-white thinking (thinking in extremes)
• Becks negative triad 


  thought that negative self schemas and cognitive biases can lead to a pessimistic and irrational view of three key elements in a persons belief system

  1.negative views of self

  2.negative views of the world

  3.negative views of the future

  -not the result of conscious intention they are automatic
• Correlational research 


  data between negative thinking and depression is correlational - can’t infer cause and effect

  Grazioli and Terry assessed congnitive vulnerability in 65 pregnant women

  those with negative thinking before birth were more likely to develop post natal depression - showing the negative thoughts did come first and then led to depression
• positive implications 


  led to development Of CBT , 90% of patients show improvement with CBT - very effective
• Weakness 


  Some ‘irrational beliefs‘ are more accurate than others = depressive realism /sadder but wiser effect

  those with depression are more accurate in predicting the likelihood of a disaster- is it appropriate to change their way of thinking and label it irrational?
• Weakness


  Negative thinking may not be specific to depression- also associated with anxiety and eating disorders

  theory is deterministic
• Weakness 


  Reductionist - reduced depression down to thought processes and faulty thinking , doesn’t take biological factors into account