Explaining depression Flashcards
(18 cards)
What did Beck suggest?
People with depression process info to people w/o it. (faulty info processing)
Who proposed the negative triad?
Beck
What is the negative triad?
Three schemas with persistent automatic negative bias
What are the three schemas?
- The self
- The world
- The future
What is a schema?
A mental framework in which allows us to quickly process large amounts of sensory information and make automatic assumptions/responses
Describe the negative schema of the self?
feeling inadequate and unworthy
Describe the negative schema of the world
thinking people are hostile or threatening
Describe the negative schema of the future
Thinking things will always turn out bad
What could a negative schema be caused by and what could it cause?
parental/ peer rejection, can lead to avoidance, social withdraw + inaction
What is overgeneralisation?
1 negative experience results in assumption that the same thing will always happen
What is selective abstraction?
mentally filtering out positive experiences and focusing on the negative
According to Ellis what is anxiety and depression a result of?
irrational thoughts
Describe Ellis’ ABC model
A: Activating event - anything that happens to someone
B: Belief - irrational beliefs
C: Consequence - irrational beliefs lead to negative consequence, rational beliefs lead to positive consequence
What is mustabatory thinking?
The source of irrational beliefs, thinking that certain ideas or assumptions MUST be true.
- ‘I must do well or very well or I am worthless’
A03 - Models have practical applications
- Cognitive explanations have been applied to CBT
- CBT found to be best treatment for depression, especially when used with drug treatment (Cuijpers et al)
- Usefulness of CNT as a therapy supports the effectiveness of the cognitive approach
- If depression is alleviated by challenging irrational thinking, then this suggests that these thoughts had a role in depression in the first place
- means our understanding (Becks/Ellis theory) of the causes of depression have lead to successful treatments that in turn improves the quality of life
A03 - Supporting evidence
- Hammen and Krantz found that depressed ppts made more errors in logic than non-depressed patients, when asked to interpret material
- Also, Bates et al found depressed patients who were given negative automatic though statements became more depressed
- Research supports the view of negative thinking leads to depression.
A03 - Alternative explanation
- Biological approach to understanding a mental disorder suggests that genetics and neurotransmitters may cause depression
- For example, research supports the role of low levels of serotonin in depressed people and found that a gene related to this is 10 times more common in depressed people (Zhang et al)
- The success of drug therapies in treating depression suggests that neurotransmitters do play an important role
- A more appropriate explanation may be the diathesis-stress model. People with a genetic vulnerability are more prone to the effects of living in a negative environment, which then leads to negative irrational thinking
- Suggests that the cognitive explanation cannot be taken in alone
A03 - Irrational beliefs may be realistic
- limitation is that not irrational thoughts are irrational, they may simply seem irrational
- Alloy and Abramson suggest that depressive realists tend to see thing the way they are
- The found that depressed people gave more accurate estimates of the likelihood of a disaster than ‘normal’ controls
- and called this the sadder but wiser effect
- The doubts about whether irrational thinking is really irrational raises questions about the value of the cognitive approach
