cognitive approach to explaining depression

Question 1

what does the cognitive approach refer to?

Answer 1

how our mental processes (eg. thoughts, perceptions and attention) affect behaviour

Question 2

who suggests the idea of cognitive vulnerability?

Answer 2

• american psychiatrist aaron beck (1967) took a cognitive approach to explaining why some people are more vulnerable to depression than others
• in particular, it is a person’s cognitions that create this vulnerability ie. the way they think

Question 3

what are the 3 parts of cognitive vulnerability?

Answer 3

• faulty information processing
• negative self-schema
• the negative triad

Question 4

cognitive vulnerability: faulty information processing

Answer 4

• when depressed people attend to the negative aspects of a situation and ignore positives
• depressed people may tend towards ‘black-and-white thinking’ where something is either all bad or all good

Question 5

cognitive vulnerability: negative self-schema

Answer 5

• a schema is a ‘package’ of ideas and information developed through experience which acts as a mental framework for the interpretation of sensory information
• a self-schema is the package of information people have about themselves
• people use schema to interpret the world, so if a person has a negative self-schema they interpret all information about themselves in a negative way

Question 6

cognitive vulnerability: the negative triad

Answer 6

• beck suggested that a person develops a dysfunctional view of themselves because of the 3 types of negative thinking that occur automatically, regardless of the reality of what is happening at the time, called the negative triad
• when a person is depressed, negative thoughts about the world, future and oneself are uppermost

Question 7

what are the three elements of the beck’s negative triad?

Answer 7

1. negative view of the world: eg. ‘the world is a cold and hard place’ created the impression that there is no hope anywhere
2. negative view of the future: eg. ‘there isn’t much chance that the economy will get better’ reduces any hopefulness and enhances depression
3. negative view of the self: eg. ‘i am a failure’ enhances any existing depressive feelings because they confirm the existing emotions of low self-esteem

Question 8

evaluation of beck: research support (clark and beck 1999)

Answer 8

• in a review, clark and beck (1999) concluded that cognitive vulnerabilities were more common in depressed people and preceded the depression
• likely association between cognitive vulnerability and depression

Question 9

evaluation of beck: research support (cohen et al. 2019)

Answer 9

• this was confirmed in a prospective study by cohen et al. (2019)
• they tracked the development of 473 adolescents, regularly measuring cognitive vulnerability
• it was found that cognitive vulnerability predicted later depression

Question 10

evaluation of beck: real-world application in screening

Answer 10

• cohen et al. concluded that assessing cognitive vulnerability allows psychologists to screen young people, identifying those most at risk of developing depression in the future and monitoring them
• this is useful in clinical practice

Question 11

evaluation of beck: real-world application in treatment for depression

Answer 11

• understanding cognitive vulnerability can also be applied to CBT
• CBT works by altering the kind of cognitions that make people vulnerable to depression, making them more resilient to negative life events
• therefore, understanding cognitive vulnerability is useful in more than one aspect of clinical practice

Question 12

evaluation of beck: a partial explanation

Answer 12

• beck’s cognitive vulnerabilities can be seen in depressed people even before the onset of depression, so it is at least a partial explanation
• however, some aspects of depression are not particularly well explained by cognitive explanations
• for example, some depressed people feel extreme anger, and some experience hallucinations and delusions

Question 13

what did albert ellis (1962) suggest as a cognitive explanation for depression?

Answer 13

• good mental health is the result of rational thinking, defined as thinking in ways that allow people to be happy and free from pain
• to ellis, conditions like anxiety and depression (poor mental health) result from irrational thoughts

Question 14

what did ellis define as irrational thoughts?

Answer 14

not illogical or unrealistic thoughts, but as any thoughts that interfere with us being happy and free from pain

Question 15

what is ellis’s ABC model used to explain?

Answer 15

how irrational thoughts affect our behaviour and emotional state

Question 16

what do the different elements of ellis’s ABC models stand for?

Answer 16

• A = activating event
• B = beliefs
• C = consequences

Question 17

ABC model: what are activating events?

Answer 17

• ellis focused on situations in which irrational thoughts are triggered by external events
• according to ellis, we experience negative events and these trigger irrational beliefs
• events like failing an important test or ending a relationship might therefore trigger irrational beliefs

Question 18

ABC model: what are some beliefs which ellis identified?

Answer 18

• musterbation: the belief that we must always succeed or achieve perfection
• i-can’t-stand-it-itis: the belief that it is a major disaster when something does not go smoothly
• utopianism: the belief that life is always meant to be fair

Question 19

ABC model: what are consequences?

Answer 19

• when an activating event triggers irrational beliefs there are emotional and behavioural consequences
• eg. if a person believes that they must always succeed and then fails at something, this can trigger depression

Question 20

evaluation of ellis: real-world application is psychological treatment of depression

Answer 20

• ellis’s approach to cognitive therapy is called rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT)
• the idea of REBT is that by vigorously arguing with a depressed person, the therapist can alter the irrational beliefs that are making them unhappy
• there is some evidence to support the idea that REBT can both change negative beliefs and relieve the symptoms of depression (david et al. 2018); REBT has real-world value

Question 21

evaluation of ellis: only explains reactive depression, not endogenous

Answer 21

• what ellis called depression triggered by activating events is sometimes called reactive depression
• how we respond to negative life events also seems to be at least partly the result of our beliefs
• however, many cases of depression are not traceable to life events is it is not obvious what leads the person to become depressed at a particular time (endogenous depression)
• ellis’s model many only explain some cases of depression (ie. less useful for explaining endogenous) so it is only a partial explanation

Question 22

evaluation of ellis: ethical issues

Answer 22

• ABC model is controversial as it locates responsibility for depression purely within the depressed person
• critics say this is effectively blaming the depressed person, which would be unfair
• however, provided it is used appropriately and sensitively, REBT does appear to make at least some depressed people achieve more resilience and feel better