Cognitive Explanation To Depression Flashcards
What does Albert Ellis propose?
He proposed the key to disorders such as depression lays in irrational beliefs.
What did Aaron Beck propose?
That depressed individuals feel as they do because their thinking is biased towards negative interpretations of the world, the future and themselves.
Ellis’ ABC model
Activating event: a situation that triggers the irrational thought
Beliefs: how the event is interpreted by the individual
Consequences: what you do or how you feel about the event.
What part of the model triggers depression?
B part. It is not the event but the irrational belief that triggers depression. These beliefs are irrational in the sense that they are unrealistic
What is meant by the term cognitive bias?
Refers to the process of distorting and misinterpreting information, for example over-generalisations.
According to Beck, why do depressed people develop negative schemas?
Depressed people develop negative schemas due to negative experiences from the past
What maintains the negative triad?
Cognitive biases and negative schemas maintain the negative triad.
Types of irrational beliefs
Musturbatory thinking - the belief that certain assumptions must be true in order for an individual to be happy
‘Black and white thinking’ - things are either completely good or bad.
‘Utopianism’ - the belief that life is always meant to be fair.
‘Catastrophising’ - going to the worst case scenario straight away
What maintains the negative triad?
Cognitive biases and negative schemas maintain the negative triad.
What are the three elements of the negative triad?
Negative view of self, world, and future
Beck’s theory of depression
Faulty information processing which causes negative schemas.
We use these schemas to interpret everything that happens to us and this causes a negative bias in our thinking and outlook on life which makes us feel depressed.
Negative schemas
The schemas we have about ourselves are all interpreted in a negative way
Negative triad.
Negative views about the world
Negative views about. Negative views about
One’s self. The future
What can lead to negative schemas?
For example, childhood events such as a loss of a parent (attachment theory) and rejection by peers.
Strengths - AO3
P - Research support that negative thought patterns are key in depressive patients.
E - Hammen and Krantz found that participants suffering from depression made significantly more logical error in their interpretations.
