Cogntive Explanations for Depression

Question 1

What is Ellis’s ABC model?

Answer 1

• Ellis suggested that all mental disorders are caused by irrational beliefs.
• It is not the events that happen to a person that cause mental illness, it is the way in which they are interpreted.
  -In the case of depression, the irrational beliefs concern assumptions that are required in order for a person to be happy.
• If these assumptions are not met the person becomes unhappy or even depressed.

Ellis suggested that people think in the following way:

A - An Activating event, an event that happens in your life. These events happen to many people and can be healthily dealt with or unhealthily dealt with.

B - A Belief about what is to be expected in life.
Rational beliefs lead to the event being interpreted in a realistic and healthy way, irrational beliefs lead to the event being interpreted in an unrealistic and unhealthy way.
Rational beliefs lead to good mental health, irrational beliefs can lead to poor mental health.

C - The consequences of beliefs

Question 2

A03 - Free Will

Answer 2

• Whilst the cognitive explanation gives empowerment to the individual to take charge of their life through free will, a singular focus on a client’s thinking style ignores other possible influencing factors.
• For instance, robust research exists to suggest there is a genetic vulnerability for depression:
• McGuffin et al (1996) found concordance rates of 46% for identical twins and 20% for non-identical twins.
• This might be explained by the diathesis-stress model which suggests that a person who develops depression is born with a genetic predisposition towards developing depression.
• It just requires an incident
  to trigger the depression.
  -Hence, these cognitive explanations do not provide a comprehensive explanation of the cause of depression for all individuals.

Question 3

A03 - Successful Therapies

Answer 3

• Cognitive explanations have inspired successful therapies for depression, such as CBT and REBT.
• Butler and Beck (2000) reviewed 14 meta-analyses investigating the effectiveness of Beck’s cognitive therapy and concluded that about 80% of adults benefited from the therapy.
• If therapy based on correcting irrational thought processing reduces depression, this suggests that thought processes might be associated with depression, supporting the notions of the cognitive approach.

Question 4

What are MUSTS? (Absolutist thinking)

Answer 4

-Ellis suggested that people sometimes irrationally assume that specific things MUST happen in order to
be happy.
-If these things do not happen then the person will be unhappy or even become depressed.
EG
* I MUST succeed/do extremely well otherwise I am worthless.
* I MUST live up to my parent’s expectations
These types thought processes are bound to make a person disappointed and sometimes depressed as they are irrational/unreasonable.

Question 5

A03 - Ignores other factors

Answer 5

• Whilst the cognitive explanation gives empowerment to the individual to take charge of their life, through free will, a singular focus on a client’s thinking style ignores other possible influencing factors.
  -For instance, robust research exists to suggest there is a genetic vulnerability for depression: McGuffin et al (1996) found concordance rates of 46% for identical twins (monozygotic, MZ) and 20% for non-identical twins (dizygotic, DZ).
  -This might be explained by the diathesis-stress model which suggests that a person who develops
  depression is born with a genetic predisposition (the diathesis) towards developing depression.
  -It just requires an incident (the stress) to trigger the depression. Some people are not born with the genetic predisposition so do not develop depression.
  -Hence, these cognitive explanations do not provide a comprehensive explanation
  of the cause of depression for all individuals.

Question 6

What is Becks negative triad?

Answer 6

-Beck believed that depressed individuals feel as they do because their thinking is biased towards negative
interpretations of the world.
-They have acquired a negative schema during childhood.
-This may be caused by a variety of factors, including parental and/or peer rejection, teachers’ criticism or parents’ depressive attitudes.
- These negative schemas are activated whenever they encounter a new situation resembling the original conditions in which these schemas were learned.
- Negative schemas are also subject to certain
cognitive biases in thinking:

overgeneralization - drawing a sweeping conclusion regarding self-worth on the basis of one small piece of negative feedback.

Catastrophising – something happens – it can be trivial, and then the depressed person applies bigger
negative consequences than necessary.

Negative schemas and cognitive biases maintain what Beck calls the negative triad - a pessimistic view of:
The self (I cannot attract a partner, I am ugly, I am boring)
The world (not being able to cope with the demands of the environment)
The future (this is the way things are, things will not get better)