Cognitive explanation for depression

Question 1

Cognitive approach to explaining depression

Answer 1

-The cognitive approach states that depression is due to irrational thoughts, resulting from maladaptive internal mental processes

Question 2

Beck’s negative triad

Answer 2

-Beck’s negative triad involves 3 schemas with persistent automatic negative bias:
-An individual may have negative schemas about “the self” (self-scehmas) e.g feeling inadequate or worthless
-They may have negative schemas about “the world”, seeing it as hostile and threatening
-They may also have negative schemas about “the future”, always thinking that things will turn out badly
-This can lead to social withdrawl, reduced activity levels and avoidance

Question 3

Development of beck’s negative triad + cognitive distortions

Answer 3

-Beck’s negative triad develops during childhood, but provides a framework for persistent negative biases in adulthood, leading to cognitive distortions (inaccurately perceiving the world)
-There are two types of cognitive distortions:
-Overgeneralisation is where one negative experience results in the assumption that the same thing will always happen e.g failing a test and assuming you will fail every other test you take
-Selective abstraction is mentally filtering out positive experiences and only focusing on the negative

Question 4

Ellis ABC model

Answer 4

-Ellis ABC model attempts to explain how someone with depression deals with stress and unpleasant events in a way that leads to unhealthy emotions
-The A refers to the activating event, which is anything that happens to someone (large or small) e.g a breakup
-The B refers to belief, and this is where we can differentiate between sufferers and non sufferers of depression. A person without depression will have rational thoughts about the activating event whereas a person with depression will have irrational thoughts about the activating event
-The C refers to consequences; irrational beliefs about the activating event lead to negative consequences, rational beliefs lead to positive consequences

Question 5

Mustabatory thinking

Answer 5

-Mustubatory thinking explains irrational beliefs as a consequence of not accepting that we don’t live in a perfect world
-Ellis outlined three “musts” that hold us back: “I must do well”, “you must treat me well” and “The world must be easy”
-When these unrealistic expectations are not achieved, it leads to a constant state of disappointment and anxiety that they are not achieved

Question 6

Positive research evaluation of cognitive explanation for depression + diathesis-stress mechanism in Beck’s (Grazoli and Terry 2000)

Answer 6

-Grazoli and Terry (2000) assessed the thinking styles of mothers before and six weeks after giving birth
-They found that Mothers with negative thinking styles were more likely to develop post partum depression
-This supports the theory that depression is the result of faulty processes and also suggests a diathesis stress mechanism to Beck’s theory
-The negative thinking style is the vulnerability and this is triggered by an averse event such as motherhood

Question 7

Positive evaluation of cognitive explanation (success of cognitive therapies)

Answer 7

-The cognitive theories of depression have led to the development of cognitive therapies such as CBT
-The fact that these treatments are successful suggests that the underlying cognitive explanations are valid

Question 8

Negative evaluation

Answer 8

-different types of depression such as bipolar depression involves manic episodes where a person can be extremely happy and excited
-This is difficult to explain using Beck’s theory; which explains depression is as a result of negative schemas, however schemas are not subject to random change