Ethical issues

• Ethical issues

  1. Patient blame
  2. What is rational?
• Patient blame

  • CBT may put the blame for mental illness on the patient themselves
  • Patient may feel worse than they already do + reduce their self-esteem
• What is rational?

  • Up to therapists judgement to decide what is and what's not a rational thought
  • Alloy + Abrahamson (1979) - suggest that people who don't have depression tend to distort things in a positive way but people with depression see things how they are
  • Found that depressed people display the sadder but wiser effect, that they were more accurate in their estimates of the likelihood of 'disaster' than non-depressed individuals