Depression

• Characterising Depression

  Behavioural -> increased or decreased activity levels / increased or decreased eating / increased or decreased sleeping / aggression and self-harm.

  Emotional -> lowered mood / lowered self esteem / anger.

  Cognitive -> poor concentration / negative self-schema / absolutist thinking.
• Explaining Depression

  Cognitive approach argues that depression is caused by faulty thinking.

  Ellis' ABC Model -> Activating event causes an irrational belief which leads to a negative consequence.

  Beck's negative triad -> Faulty info processing causes a negative view of the self, the world and the future.
• Evaluation

  Research support -> Grazioli and Terry assessed 65 pregnant women and before and after giving birth and found that those who were cognitively vulnerable were more likely to suffer post natal depression.

  RWA -> led to the development of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

  The cognitive approach fails to consider to account for all aspects of depression. It also fails to consider biology -> there is evidence that there is lower levels of serotonin in depressed patients.
• Treating Depression

  CBT -> A highly structured programme involving 1 to 1 sessions with a therapist where they; get them to recognise their irrational thoughts, get them to give evidence of irrational thoughts, set homework where they reality test, get them to write diaries for when negative thinking occurs.

  Evaluation

  March et al found that 36 weeks of CBT was just as effective as drug therapy and lacks the side effects drugs have. However, it is very time consuming and requires motivation from the client which they may not have.