Depression - Cognitive Flashcards
The Cognitive Approach to explaining depression
Cognitive approaches focus on how irrational thinking leads to mental disorder. Cognitive explanations are particularly appropriate for depression.
Becks Negative Triad:
Explain
Beck Believed That Depression Follows Thinking That is Negatively Biased, coupled with a sense of lack of control.
Becks Negative Triad:
Negative Schema
Negative Schemas are acquired in childhood and activated in conditions resembling those in which they were learned. EG Expecting to fair when tested.
They lead to cognitive biases in thinking EG Over-generalisation reduced feelings of self-worth based on one piece of negative feedback.
Becks Negative Triad:
The negative Triad
Negative Schemas and Cognitive Biases maintain the negative triad: a pessimistic and irrational view of three key elements in a persons belief system:
*The self: “Im unattractive and boring”
*The World: “No-One wants my company”
The Future: “I m always going to be on my own”.
Ellis ABC Model
In His ABC Model Ellis Proposed that the key to depression lies in irrational beliefs:
A: Activation event - You get a low grade
B: Rational or Irrational Belief: “I didn’t work hard” vs “My Tutor is sadistic”
C: Consequence - Rational beliefs lead to health emotions (acceptance) irrational belief’s lead to unhealthy emotions (depression)
Define Musturbatory Thinking
This is the source of irrational beliefs that certain things must be true for an individual to be happy. Ellis identified the three most important irrational beliefs:
*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.
Such ‘Musts’ need to be challenged in order for mental healthiness to prevail
Evaluation of the cognitive approach to explaining depression:
Research support for the role of irrational thinking
Study by Hammem and Krantz: When asked to interpret written material, depressed participants made more errors in logic than non-depressed participants.
Study by Bates: Depressed participants who were given negative automatic-thought statements became increasingly depressed.
Both studies support hypotheses derived from the cognitive approach
Evaluation of the cognitive approach to explaining depression:
Blames the patient rather than situational factors
Responsibility for depression and recovery rests with the individual. Situational factors being in a stressful job. may be side-lined. In this case altering thinking patterns does not deal with the problems root cause.
Evaluation of the cognitive approach to explaining depression:
Practical applications in therapy
Cognitive explanations presented here have both been usefully applied in CBT which is consistently found to be the best treatments. This lends support to the underlying explanation
Evaluation of the cognitive approach to explaining depression:
More complex explanations
The diathesis-stress approach suggests that a genetic propensity for depression renders individuals more vulnerable to the effects of a negative environment, which then leads to negative irrational thinking. The success of drug therapies for depression suggests that neurotransmitters play an important role. Cognitive explanations alone do not account
The Cognitive Approach To Treating Depression
Cognitive explanations of depression from the basis of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). The aim of therapy is to turn irrational thoughts into rational ones and develop coping strategies leading to behavioural change.
Ellis - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy:
Challenging Irrational Thoughts
Ellis called his CBT based therapy ‘rational emotional behavioural therapy. because the therapy resolves emotional and behavioural problems.
He extended the ABC model to ABCDEF:
D:Disputing irrational thoughts and beliefs
E: Effects of disputing and effective attributes to life
F: Feelings that are produced
Ellis - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy:
REBT Focuses on ?
REBT focuses on challenging irrational thoughts and replacing them with rational ones:
Logical Disputing - Self Defeating beliefs do not follow from the event
Empirical Disputing - Self Defeating beliefs are inconsistent with reality
Pragmatic Disputing - The pointlessness of Self Defeating beliefs.
Effective disputing changes self defeating beliefs into more rational beliefs replacing catastrophic with more rational interpretations of events.
Ellis - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy:
Homework
Patients are often asked to complete homework outside therapy sessions to test irrational beliefs against reality and put new rational beliefs into practice.
Ellis - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy:
Behavioural Activation
Based on the assumption that being active leads to rewards that act as an antidote to depression, CBT often involves encouraging patients to become more active and engaged in pleasurable activities.
