Cog app to expl dep Flashcards
What does the cog app to expl dep consist of?
Ellis’ ABC model
Beck’s Negative triad
Ellis’ ABC model
A cognitive approach to understanding mental disorder, focusing on the effect of irrational beliefs on emotions.
A: activating event
B: belief (may be rational or irrational)
C: consequence(rational beliefs lead to healthy emotions, whereas irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy emotions eg depression)
Musturbatory thinking
= thinking that certain ideas or assortions must be true in order for an individual to be happy. Source of irrational beliefs.
Ellis identified the three most important irrational beliefs:
* I must be approved of or accepted by people I find important.
* I must do well or very well, or I am worthless.
* The world must give me happiness, or I will die.
An individual who holds these assumptions is bound to be disappointed or depressed.
Such musts need to be challenged in order for mental healthiness to prevail.
Beck’s negative triad
A cognitive approach to understanding depression, focusing on how negative expectations (schema) about the self, world and future lead to depression.
Negative schema: Depressed people have acquired a negative schema during childhood - a tendency to adopt a negative view of the world.
May be bc of :parental/peer rejection and criticisms by teachers.
These negative schemas (e.g. expecting to fail) are activated whenever the person encounters a new situation (e.g. an exam) that resembles the original conditions in which these schemas were learned.
Negative schemas lead to systematic cognitive biases in thinking. Eg: individuais over-generalise, drawing a sweeping conclusion regarding self-worth on the basis of one small piece of negative feedback.
The negative triad:
1. Negative view of self
2. Negative view of future
3. Negative view of world
AO3: cog app to expl dep
str: support for role of irrational thinking
lim: blames client
str: appl
lim: alt expl
cog expl dep str: support for irr thinking
The view that depression is linked to irrational thinking is supported by research.
Hammen and Krantz: found that depressed participants made more errors in logic when asked to interpret written material than did non-depressed participants.
Bates et al: found that depressed participants who were given negative automatic-thought statements became more and more depressed.
This research supports the view that negative thinking leads to depression, although this link does not mean that negative thoughts cause depression. Instead, negative thinking may develop because of their depression.
cog expl dep lim: blames client
The cognitive approach suggests that it is the client who is responsible for their disorder rather than situational factors
Placing of emphasis on the client is a good thing because it gives the client the power to change the way things are.
However, this stance has limitations. It may lead the client or therapist to overlook situational factors, for example not considering how life events or family problems may have contributed to the mental disorder.
The strength of the cognitive approach therefore lies in its focus on the client’s mind and recovery but other aspects of the client’s environment and life may also need to be considered.
cog expl dep: applications
The cognitive explanations presented here have both been applied to CBT
CBT is consistently found to be the best treatment for depression, especially when used in conjunction with drug treatments
The usefulness of CBT as a therapy supports the effectiveness of the cognitive approach
- if depression is alleviated by challenging irrational thinking, then this suggests such thoughts had a role in the depression in the first place.
cog expl dep lim: alt explanations
The biological approach to understanding mental disorder suggests that genes and neurotransmitters may cause depression.
Zhang’s research :supports the role of low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in depressed people and has also found that a gene related to this is 10 times more common in people with depression
The success of drug therapies for treating depression suggests that neurotransmitters do play an important role. At the very least a diathesis-stress approach might be advisable, suggesting that individuals with a genetic vulnerability for depression are more prone to the effects of living in a negative environment, which then leads to negative irrational thinking.
The existence of alternative approaches and (effective) therapies suggest that depression can’t be explained by the cognitive approach
