CBT

• What is the most common used psychological treatment to treat depression ?

  Cognitive behavioural therapy [CBT]. It is an example of the cognitive approach to treatment, though it also includes behavioural elements.
• What is the cognitive element ?

  CBT starts off with an assessment in which the spinet and the CB therapist work together to clarify the problems. They jointly identify goals for the therapy and put together a plan to achieve them.

  
  

  One of the central tasks is to identify where there might be negative or irrational thoughts that will benefit from challenge.
• What is the behaviour element ?

  CBT then involves working to change negative and irrational thoughts and finally put more effective behaviour into place.
• What is the aim behind CBT ?


  It is an application of becks cognitive theory of depression. The idea behind cognitive therapy is go identify automatic thoughts about the world, the self and the future [negative triad]. Once identified these thoughts must be challenged. This is the central component of the therapy.
• As well as challenging the thoughts directly, what else does cognitive therapy aim to do ?

  Help clients test the reality of their negative beliefs. They might set homework e.g. record when they enjoyed an event. This is referred to as the client as scientists.

  
  

  In future session if the client say that no one is nice to them, the therapist can produce this evidence to prove the clients beliefs are incorrect.
• What type of therapy extended from Ellis ABC model ?

  Rational emotive behaviour therapy [REBT] extends the ABC model to an ABCDE model. D stands for dispute and E for effort.
• What is the central technique of REBT ?


  identify and dispute irrational thoughts
• What's an example of this ?


  A Client might talk about how unlucky they have been or how unfair things seem. An REBT therapist would identify these as examples of Utopianism and challenge this as an irrational belief. This would involve a vigorous argument . The intended effect is to change the irrational belief and so break the ;ink between negative life events and depression
• What are the different methods of disputing ?

  Empirical argument- disputing whether there is evidence to support the irrational belief.

  
  

  logical argument- disputing whether the negative thoughts actually follows from the facts.
• What is behavioural activation ?

  depressed people tend to increasing avoid difficult situations and become isolated, which maintains or worsen symptoms.

  
  

  The goal of behavioural activation is to work with depressed individuals to gradually decrease their avoidance and isolation, and increase their engagement in activities that have been shown to improve mood e.g. exercising, going out to dinner etc. the therapist aims to reinforce such activity.
• AO3

  there are alternative explanations which suggest that depression is a biological condition, caused by genes and neurotransmitters

  • Research focused on the role of serotonin has found lower levels in patients with depression
  • In addition, drug therapies, including SSRIs which increase the level of serotonin, are found to be effective in the treatment of depression, which provide further support for the role of neurotransmitters, in the development of depression
  • This therefore casts doubt on the cognitive explanation as a sole cause of the disorder
• AO3 real world application

  • Cohen at al concluded that assessing cognitive vulnerability allows psychologist to screen young people, identifying those at most risk of developing depression in the future and monitoring them
  • understanding cognitive vulnerability can be applied to CBT
  •  Ellis ABC model can be applied to psychological treatment
  • REBT is where the therapist can alter the irrational beliefs that are making them unhappy
  • there’s evidence to support the idea that REBT can change negative beliefs and relieve symptoms of depression
• AO3 limitation

  • one weakness of the cognitive approach is that it does not explain the origins of irrational thoughts
  • Since most of the research in this area is correlational psychologists
  • therefore, they're unable to determine if negative, irrational thoughts cause depression, or whether a person’s depression leads to a negative mindset
  • so, its possible that other factors, for example, genes and neurotransmitters, are the cause of depression
  • the negative, irrational thoughts are the symptom of depression