explaining depression (cognitive)

• What are two cognitive approaches to explaining depression?

  - Beck's negative triad

  - Ellis' ABC model
• What did Beck's negative triad suggest?

  some people's thinking patterns created a vulnerability to depression
• What is faulty information processing?

  When people tend to focus on the negative aspects of situations & ignore the positive ones, tend to blow small problems out of proportion
• What is a negative self-schema?


  may have grown up with a framework for understanding themselves & the world that is negative, e.g thinking they will always fail academically
• What did Beck suggest these negative schemas & cognitive biases maintain?

  - negative triad : negative view of world, negative view of future & negative view of self
• What does Ellis's ABC model argue?

  - good mental health is the result of rational thinking, allow people to be happy & free of pain.

  
  

  - Ellis proposed that depression is caused by irrational beliefs & used the ABC model to explain this
• What does A stand for in the ABC model?

  A - activating event, such as a relationship break up
• What does B stand for in the ABC model?


  B - beliefs

  Ellis said we become depressed when an event triggers negative beliefs, in particular 'mustabatory thinking
• What is mustabatory thinking?

  When people think they must perfect & that everyone must love them & treat them fairly
• What does C stand for in the ABC model?

  C - consequences

  
  

  when an event triggers such beliefs, the consequences can b unhealthy emotions & depression,

  
  

  e.g if you think everyone must treat you well then your expectations are too high & u r bound to become disappointed & depressed
• What is a strength of an explanation for depression?

  - research support for Becks negative triad

  - Grazioli & Terry assessed 65 pregnant women for cognitive vulnerability & depression before & after birth

  - found women judged to have been high in cognitive vulnerability were most prone to post-natal depression

  - Furthermore, Cohen et al. tracked the development of 473 adolescents regularly & measured cognitive vulnerability

  - found cognitive vulnerability predicted later depression

  - shows an association between cognitive vulnerability and depression supporting Becks theory
• What is a limitation of an explanation for depression?

  - a weakness of the cognitive approach as an explanation of depression is that there may be alternative biological explanations that suggest that genes and neurotransmitters may cause depression

  - For example research supports the role of low levels of the serotonin in depressed ppl

  - Furthermore, the success of drug therapies e.g SSRIs suggest that neurotransmitters do play an important role in the explanation of depression

  - this indicates that there may be other biological factors in the explanation of depression