3.6. Depression Explanation- Cognitive Approach

Question 1

What is the emphasis in the cognitive approach?

Answer 1

How thinking shapes our behaviour

Question 2

What are cognitive psychologists most concerned with?

Answer 2

How irrational thinking leads to a mental disorder

Question 3

Why are cognitive explanations most appropriate in explaining and treating depression?

Answer 3

Depression is characterised by negative irrational thinking

Question 4

What are some examples of irrational beliefs?

Answer 4

• I must always achieve perfection
• I must be loved by every significant other
• My past history determines my present behaviour

Question 5

What did Ellis propose?

Answer 5

The key to mental disorders such as depression lay in irrational beliefs

Question 6

What does Ellis’ ABC model comprise of?

Answer 6

A: Activating event

B: Belief -> may be rational or irrational

C: Consequence -> irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy emotions

Question 7

What is musturbatory thinking?

Answer 7

The source of the irrational belief that certain things must be true for an individual to be happy

Question 8

What were the 3 most important irrational beliefs that Ellis identified?

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

What needs to happen in order for mental health to prevail?

Answer 9

Such musts need to be challenged

Question 10

What did Beck suggest?

Answer 10

Some people are cognitively more vulnerable to developing depression, believing that 3 factors create a ‘cognitive vulnerability’ to depression

Question 11

What 3 factors create the cognitive vulnerability?

Answer 11

• Negative self schemas
• Faulty info processing
• The negative triad

Question 12

What are schemas

Answer 12

A package of ideas and info developed through past experience

Question 13

What are self schemas?

Answer 13

A package of information we hold about ourselves

Question 14

When do we use these schemas?

Answer 14

When we interpret the world and therefore, if we have a negative self schema, we will interpret all info about ourselves negatively

Question 15

When are negative self schemas acquired?

Answer 15

In childhood and activated in conditions resembling those in which they were learned

Question 16

What kind of childhood events could lead to negative self schemas?

Answer 16

• Loss of a parent
• Rejection by peers
• Criticism by parents
• Physical abuse
• Emotional abuse

Question 17

What is faulty information processing?

Answer 17

Info processing of depressed individuals is cognitively biased which makes them more prone to depression and once depressed, these thoughts make it difficult to get better.

Question 18

What is the negative triad?

Answer 18

Beck believed that depressed individuals feel as they do because their thinking is biased towards negative interpretations of the world and they lack a perceived sense of control

Negative views about the world -> negative views about the future, negative views about oneself

Negative views about the future <—-> Negative views about oneself

Question 19

How is the negative triad maintained?

Answer 19

Through negative self schemas and cognitive biases -> a pessimistic and irrational view of three key elements in a personal beliefs system

Question 20

What are the three key elements in a personal beliefs system?

Answer 20

• the self
• the world
• the future

Question 21

Strength: research supports the role of irrational thinking

Answer 21

• Bates found that when depressed ppts who were given negative automatic thought statements became more and more depressed, supporting the view that negative thinking leads to depression
• Cohen et al tracked 473 adolescents and found that early cognitive vulnerability is therefore useful in clinical practice.
• However, this just proves there’s a link beterrn negative thoughts and depression, doesn’t give a cause. Beck’s idea is a partial explanation.
• Therefore, people with maladaptive cognitive processes are at a greater risk of developing mental disorders because of a possible negative predisposition. The cognitive model is not a particularly good explanation for all depressive phenomena.

Question 22

Strength: RWA

Answer 22

Screening:
- Assessing cognitive vulnerability in young people most at risk of developing depression means they can be monitored.
- This understanding can be applied in CBT to alter cognitions underlying depression, making someone more resilient to life events, meaning the idea of cognitive vulnerability is useful in clinical practice.

Treatment:
- Both methods have been usefully applied in the treatment programme CBT which consistently has been shown to be the best treatment for depression.
- If depression is alleviated by challenging irrational thinking, then this suggests the irrational thoughts had a role in the depression developing in the first place.

Question 23

Weakness: Blames the patient rather than the situation

Answer 23

• The responsibility for the depression and recovery rests with the individual - this may lead the client or therapist to overlook situational factors, such as the impact of life events contributing to the disorder.
• Therefore, this approach only focuses on the thought processes and will not deal with the situational factors that may be the root cause.

Question 24

Weakness: Ellis’ model only explains reactive depression

Answer 24

• Reactive depression is where it’s triggered by negative activating effects.
• However, in many cases, it’s not obvious what triggers depression -> Ellis’ model is less useful in explaining this. It can only explain some cases of depression, not all.

Question 25

Weakness: Irrational beliefs may be realistic

Answer 25

• Irrational beliefs just might seem irrational
• Alloy and Abrahmson suggest that depressive realists tend to see things for what they are
• They found that depressed people have more accurate estimates of the likelihood of a disaster than normal controls - this is called the sadder but wiser effect

Question 26

Weakness: alternative explanations

Answer 26

• The biological approach to understanding mental disorders suggests that genes and neurotransmitters can cause depression - Zhang found lower levels of serotonin in depressed people, and a gene has been found related to this which has found to be 10x more common in people with depression.
• The success of drug treatment does suggest a neurotransmitter is responsible.
• The diathesis stress model suggests a genetic vulnerability to depression, these people are more prone to the effects of living in a negative environment which leads to irrational thinking.