Cognitive Approach To Psychopathology Flashcards
Key features of cognitive approach
- Mental disorders are caused by distorted thinking
Faulty thinking could be Cognitive Errors, Negative Schema or Biased Memories
Cognitive Errors
Lead to abnormal behaviour and emotion because cognitive errors result in distorted or faulty thinking. Could lead to depression or anxiety if these thoughts are extreme or frequent.
Includes: catastrophising, applying a negative filter and interpreting events negatively
Catastrophising
When someone always assumes the worst has happened. Eg. Waiting for a friend whose late someone might assume they’ve been in an accident, leading to an anxiety attack.
Applying a negative filter
Where someone only pays attention to negative information. Eg. Looking at the negative comments on a piece of work, rather than the high grade, leading to depression
Interpreting events negatively
When someone interprets something positive as negative. Eg. If someone gets a compliment on their clothes at a party but assume someone is mocking them
Negative Schema
Defines our previously held knowledge and views of the world. If our Schema is negative then we may be more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression.
Contains cognitive triad.
Cognitive triad
Beck found that those suffering with depression tended to hold a negative Schema about
- The self (I am useless at learning new things)
- The world (Driving examiners are all rubbish)
- The future (I will always be rubbish at driving)
Biased memories
In depression, people’s memory often becomes bias to negative events from their lives and find it difficult to recall positive ones. This bias memory can make their mood even worse and they can become trapped in a vicious cycle.
Vicious cycle (example)
Someone with depression may think their childhood and rather remembering their friends and fun times they remember being bullied or feeling left out. This may worsen their depression.
Strengths of the cognitive approach to psychopathology
:) Provides hypotheses that can be tested scientifically (Clarke and Teasdale)
:) Testable, improvement on psychodynamic
:) Led to effective, evidence based, therapies. For example CBT
Weaknesses of cognitive approach to psychopathology
:( Relies on self-report - Demand Charachteristics
:( Doesn’t explain the cause of faulty thinking
:( May underestimate the role of the unconscious
:( Cannot fully explain schizophrenia
Aims of cognitive behaviour therapy
- Change distorted thinking
- Alter dysfunctional behaviour
Three steps of CBT
- Identify
- Challenge
- Test
Identify distorted thinking
Could involve:
A thought diary - patient notes down any time of day when they noticed feeling depressed
Assessment of thoughts in sessions - Therepist may notice how many times in the session itself that the patient appears sad and may ask questions to find out why
Challenge dysfunctional thinking
Therapist works with patient to steadily challenge distorted thinking in the session. An example of this is encouraging the patient different ways of thinking about things.
Test distorted thinking
To get long lasting changing the patient must test out their thinking in real life. For example getting evidence of new ways of thinking about things, or carry out experiments that show a different point of view
Clark and Teasdale
Tested depressed patients for their memories of events that had happened in their lives. For those who were depressed more in mornings they found that memories were more negative in the morning. The opposite was found for those in the evening.
Strengths of CBT
:) Successfully applied to a wide range of disorders
:) Can be used in conjunction with drug treatments
:) Time limited
:) Prevents relapse
:) Appleby
:) Butler
Drawbacks of CBT
:( Not enough CBT therapists so long waiting lists
:( sometimes people have realistically very difficult lives and altering thinking may be difficult
Appleby
Studied 86 women with postnatal depression and randomly allocated them one of 3 conditions: antidepressants, placebo or CBT.
Found that CBT was the most effective
Butler
Reviewed the many CBT studies, with over 10,000 participants overall, and concluded that there is good evidence that CBT is effective at treating depression and a variety of anxiety disorders
