Depression

• Depression is a mood effective disorder that is a collection of physical, emotional, mental and behavioural experiences that are damaging to everyday functioning.
• The criteria for depression to be diagnosed are:

  1. Behavioural- How you behave when your depressed (energy levels low)
  2. Emotional- How you feel when your depressed (feelings of worthlessness)
  3. Cognitive- How you think when your depressed. (lack of concentration)
• Becks negative triad is three forms of thinking that are observed in people with depression.

  1. The self- Viewing yourself as worthless
  2. The world- Interpret events in the world as inherently negative
  3. The future- Nothing good is waiting for your in the future
• Beck suggested that people are more prone to depression because of their 'flawed' thinking. An example of this is cognitive biases/vulnerabilities which are distortions of thought processes, focusing only on the negatives and ignoring the positives.

  
  

  A more precise example of a cognitive bias is having a negative self-schema which is a mental blueprint of ideas and information created through experience. We use it to interpret the environment around us. So, if a person has a negative self-schema , they interpret all the information around them as negative.
• According to Ellis, depression is produced by irrational thoughts triggered by events.

  A)Activating agent (A negative event occurs)

  B) Belief (Your interpretation of the event)

  C)Consequence (Your emotional outcome)
• CBT is the most common treatment for depression, focusing on both cognitive and behavioral aspects. It challenges negative, irrational thoughts (cognitive) and encourages more effective behaviors (behavioral). Success depends on collaboration between the client and therapist. CBT also incorporates Beck’s Negative Triad, identifying negative thoughts about the self, world, and future, which the client must actively challenge to improve their mindset.
• In REBT (Rational, Emotive, Behavioural Therapy) the therapist helps the client replace their irrational beliefs with new, more rational ones.

  A representation of this is the extended ABC model.

  D)Dispute thoughts (Disagree with your thoughts)

  E)Effect (Replace those thoughts with something more rational)
• A03 Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

  Strength) A combination of medicine and C.B.T results in the most effective treatment for depression.

  Recovery using drugs alone = 55%

  Recovery with C.B.T alone = 52%

  Recovery using both drugs and C.B.T =85
• Example of cognitive distortions are Catastrophising (exaggerating the negative) and over-generalisation (having 1 bad experience and generalising it to the rest of your life)
• A03

  Strength) Beck concluded that negative biases/vulnerabilities (e.g. negative self-schema, flawed thinking) are more common in depressed people as a recent study found that people who showed cognitive vulnerabilities usually developed depression.

  -> Suggesting that there's an association between cognitive biases and depression.
• A03

  Strength) Real-world application

  Assessing the cognitive vulnerabilities in those with a high risk of depression means they can be monitored and helped. Especially by applying it to CBT therapy which aims to challenge and dispute negative, irrational thoughts.

  -> The idea of cognitive vulnerabilities has a clinical application.
• A03 Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

  Limitation) Severe cases of depressed clients may not engage in the cognitive work of CBT. This means the effect of the treatment is highly reliant on patient participation. Also, it's suggested that CBT is not suitable for people with learning difficulties as it may be intellectually too challenging.

  -> This means that CBT is only appropriate for certain types of clients.