Don’t need - The Cognitive Approach To Explaining Depression

Question 1

What are the two models?

Answer 1

ABC model

Negative triad

Question 2

Who created the ABC model?

Answer 2

Ellis - 1962

Question 3

What is the ABC model?

Answer 3

A cognitive approach to understanding mental disorders, focusing on the effect or irrational beliefs on emotions

Question 4

What are the parts of the ABC model?

Answer 4

A - refers to an activating event.

B - the belief, which may be rational or irrational.

C - the consequence (rational beliefs lead to healthy emotions, and irrational lead to unhealthy emotions).

Question 5

What’s an example of A?

Answer 5

You get fired from work

Question 6

What’s an example of B?

Answer 6

The company was overstaffed

I was sacked because they’ve always had it in for me

Question 7

What’s an example of C?

Answer 7

Healthy emotions = acceptance

Unhealthy emotions = depression

Question 8

What’s the source of irrational beliefs? (Ellis)

Answer 8

It lies in musturbatory thinking.

Question 10

What are the 3 most important irrational beliefs? (Ellis)

Answer 10

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 11

What happens if people hold the 3 beliefs? (Ellis)

Answer 11

They are bound to be, at the very least, disappointed; at worst, depressed.

Question 12

What’s an example of Ellis’ model?

Answer 12

Someone who fails an exam becomes depressed not because they have failed the exam but because they hold an irrational belief regarding that failure.

‘I must always do well, so failing the exam means i am stupid’

Question 13

Who created the negative triad model?

Answer 13

Beck - 1967

Question 14

What is the negative triad?

Answer 14

A cognitive approach to understanding depression, focusing on how negative expectations (schema) about the self, world and future lead to depression.

Question 15

What is a schema?

Answer 15

A cognitive framework that helps organise and interpret information in the brain.

It helps an individual to make sense of new information

Question 16

What’s a negative schema? (Beck)

Answer 16

A tendency to adopt a negative view of the world.

Question 17

What causes a negative schema? (Beck)

Answer 17

Variety of factors, including parental and/or peer rejection and criticisms by teachers.

Question 18

When are negative schemas activated? (Beck)

Answer 18

Whenever the person encounters a new situation (e.g. an exam) that resembles the original conditions in which these schemas were learned.

Question 19

What do negative schemas lead to? (Beck)

Answer 19

Systematic cognitive biases in thinking.

E.g. individuals over-generalise, drawing a sweeping conclusion regarding self-worth on the basis of one small piece of negative feedback.

Question 20

What maintains the negative triad?

Answer 20

Negative schemas and cognitive biases

Question 21

What are the main components of the negative triad?

Answer 21

The self - ‘I am just plain undesirable, what is there to like?’

The world - ‘I can understand why people don’t like me. They would all prefer someone else’s company’

The future - ‘I am always going to be on my own, there is nothing that is going to change this’

Question 22

What is musturbatory thinking? (Ellis)

Answer 22

Thinking that certain ideas or assumptions must be true in order for an individual to be happy.

Question 23

What are the evaluative points?

Answer 23

Support for the role of irrational thinking
Blames the client rather than situational factors
Practical applications in therapy
Irrational beliefs may be realistic
Alternative explanations

Question 24

What is meant by support for the role of irrational thinking?

Answer 24

The view that depression is linked to irrational thinking is supported by research.
Hammen and Krantz (1976) found that depressed participants made more errors in logic when asked to interpret written material than non-depressed participants.

Bates (1999) found that depressed participants show were given negative automatic-thought statements became more and more depressed, supporting the view that negative thinking leads to depression.

However, the fact that there is a link between negative thoughts and depression does not mean that negative thoughts cause depression.
It may be that, for example, a depressed individual develops a negative way of thinking because of their depression rather than the other way around.

Question 25

What is meant by blames the client rather than situational factors?

Answer 25

The cognitive approach suggests that it is the client who is responsible for their disorder.
In one sense this is a good thing because it gives the client the power to change the way things are.

However, there are disadvantages to this stance.
It may lead the client or therapist to overlook situational factors, for example not considering how life events or family problems may have contributed to the mental disorder.
This disorder is simply in the clients mind and recovery lies in changing that, rather than considering how the client/therapist might change other aspects of the clients environment and life.

Question 26

What is meant by practical applications in therapy?

Answer 26

The cognitive explanations presented here have both been applied to CBT, as you will see on the next spread.

CBT is consistently found to be the best treatment for depression especially when used in conjunction with drug treatment (Cuijpers, 2013)

The particular reason why these explanations are so useful is that they have specific implications for the success of the therapy and the therapy supports the explanation - if depression is alleviated by challenging irrational thinking then this suggests such thoughts has a role in the depression in the first place.

Question 27

What is meant by irrational beliefs may be realistic?

Answer 27

Not all irrational beliefs are ‘irrational’, they may simply seem irrational.

In fact, Alloy and Abrahmson (1979) suggest that depressive realists tend to see things for what they are (with normal people tending to view the world through rose-coloured glasses).

They found that depressed people gave more accurate estimates of the likelihood of a disaster than ‘normal’ controls, and called this the sadder but wiser effect.

Question 28

What is meant by alternative explanations?

Answer 28

The biological approach to understanding mental disorder suggests that genes and neurotransmitters may cause depression.

For example research supports the role of low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in depressed people and has also found that a gene related to this is 10 times more common in people with depression (Zhang, 2005).

The success of drug therapies for treating depression suggests that neurotransmitters do play an important role.

At the very least a diathesis-stress approach might be advisable, suggesting that individuals with genetic vulnerability for depression are more prone to the effects of living in a negative environment, which then leads to negative irrational thinking.