Explaining depression

• what is depression?

  Major depression can be characterised behaviourally (social withdrawal, affected sleep and appetite), emotionally (loss of interest and low mood), and cognitively (negative irrational thoughts and poor concentration). In order to obtain a diagnosis, a person must experience 5+ symptoms with at least one emotional characteristic for more than 2 weeks. 
• outline Ellis theory of explaining depression?

  1962 - proposed that each of us holds a unique set of assumptions about ourselves and our environment, however for some people these are irrational, suggesting that depression is produced by irrational thoughts (illogical thoughts of a distorted reality) and triggered by negative events. From this he created his ABC model.
• elaborate on Elliss ABC model?

  The model depicts an Activating event (a negative external event that triggers the irrational thoughts, Beliefs (the thoughts which the person associates with the event, and why it happened) and Consequences (rational beliefs lead to healthy consequences and irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy consequences (depression)). 
• outline becks theory of explaining depression?

  Beck proposed negative cognitive triad Which consists of negative self schemas and cognitive bias. He claimed that the cognitive bias’ and negative self schemas cause negative irrational thoughts Which result in depression. These could be about the self, world, or future. 
• elaborate on becks negative cognitive triad?

  people with depression have negative self schemas, developed through childhood, causing them to form negative expectations about themselves. Beck also believes that people with depression have negative cognitive bias’ meaning they fixate on the negative aspects of situations, ignoring the positive, with the negative information is assimilated into their negative self-schema, strengthening it.
• what are the strengths of the cognitive explaining for depression?

  One strength of the cognitive explanation for depression is its application to therapy. Ellis and Becks theories have been used to develop effective treatments for depression, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT).
• elaborate on practical applications through therapy as a strength of cognitive explanations for depression?

  These therapies attempt to identify and challenge negative, irrational thoughts and have been successfully used to treat people with depression, providing further support to the cognitive explanation of depression. Additionally, in 2013 Cuijpers et al conducted a meta analysis of America and found that depressed participants who were treated with CBT experienced significantly less depressive symptoms than those who had no treatment. 
• outline the weaknesses of cognitive explanations for depression?

  cannot explain all aspects of depression.

  doesnt explain origins of irrational thoughts/ correlation not causation.

  could be other influencing factors e.g. biological.
• elaborate on the fact that the theory does not explain all aspects of depression as a weakness of cognitive explanations of depression?

  cannot explain all aspects of depression e.g. hallucinations and anger. And ellis’ ABC model only accounts for reactive depression, where the individual has had an activating event but does not account for endogenous depression, when the depression is not traceable to life events. This creates a practical issue as patients may become frustrated that their symptoms cannot be explained according to this theory and therefore cannot be addressed in therapy.
• elaborate on the theory not explaining the origins of irrational thoughts as a weakness of cognitive explanations of depression?

  However, the cognitive approach for depression does not explain the origins of irrational thoughts and most of the research in this area is correlational. Therefore, we are unable to determine if negative, irrational thoughts cause depression, or whether a person’s depression leads to a negative mindset. Therefore, it is possible that other factors are the cause of depression and negative irrational thoughts is merely a symptom.
• elaborate on other possible influences as a weakness of cognitive explanations of depression?

  research suggest that depression is a biological condition, through the finding of lower serotonin 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, and Mcguffin et al found that the concordance rates for depression were higher in monozygotic twins (46%) than dizygotic twins (20%), concluding that depression is at least partially explained by the biological approach.