Cognitive Explanations of Depression

• Psychopathology


  The study of mental disorders and their causes, symptoms, effects and treatments
• Depression


  A mood disorder characterised by a prolonged state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and sense of well-being
• Cognitive Explanations for Depression


  • Depression develops due to irrational beliefs
  • Depression develops due to negative interpretations of the world and a lack of perceived control

  
• Ellis' ABC Model


  1. Activating event

  2. Belief about the event

  3. Consequence: rational beliefs lead to healthy emotions whereas irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy emotions such as depression
• Musturbatory thinking


  Believing an assumption must be true in order for you to be happy
• Irrational beliefs


  Lead the individual to feel disappointed and in some cases depressed
• Beck's Negative Triad


  1. Depressed people acquire negative schemas during childhood

  2. These negative schemas lead to cognitive bias in thinking (they focus on a small piece of negative feedback and generalise it across everything)

  3. Negative thoughts regarding their self, the future, and the world
• Cognitive Explanations of DepressionA03


  • Strength: Support for the role of irrational thinking
  • Limitation: Blames the client
  • Strength: Practical Applications
  • Limitation: Not all irrational beliefs are irrational
• support for the role of Irrational thinking

  For example, Hammen and Krantz (1976) found that depressed patients made more errors in logic when asked to interpret written material than non- depressed participants.

  
  

  This suggests that depression is linked to irrational thinking.
• Link between negative thoughts and depression


  Does not mean negative thoughts cause depression, may be that a person develops a negative way of thinking as a result of depression
• Blames the patient


  This is because it may lead the client or therapist to overlook situational factors

  Suggests that recovery from depression lies in changing the fact that the disorder is in the client's mind rather than considering how the client/therapist may change other aspects of the client's environment and life

  it also ignores other factors that could be contributing to their psychological disorder.
• Irrational beliefscannot be classified as irrational


  Alloy and Abrahmson suggest that depressive realists tend to see things for what they are. They found that depressed people gave more accurate estimates of the likelihood of a disaster than normal controls and called this the sadder but wiser effect.
• Practical Applications


  The cognitive explanations of depression can be useful in the real world. 

  This is because both cognitive explanations have been applied to treatments of depression such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). 

  These treatments are especially useful because it aims to gain insights into the patient's motivations and emotions.