Evaluating The Cognitive Approach To Explaining Depression

Question 1

Support for the role of irrational thinking:

Hammer and Krantz (1976)

Answer 1

found that depressed participants made more errors in logic when asked to interpret written material than non depressed participant

Question 2

Blames the client rather than situational factors:

Answer 2

it holds the client responsible and thus overlooks situational factors such as life events or family problems which may have contour it’s to the mental disorder and the focus is then not on changing the clients environment and life

Question 3

Irrational beliefs may be realistic:

Alloy and Abrahmson (1979)

Answer 3

suggests that depressive realists tend to see things for what they are and have more accurate estimates of the likelihood of a disaster than ‘normal’ controls