Explaining depression Flashcards
What is Beck’s negative triad?
He suggests that people with depression become trapped in a cycle of negative thoughts. They selectively attend to the negative aspects of a situation.
The cycle is negative views about the world, negative views about the future, negative views about oneself.
How do negative schema relate to Beck’s negative triad?
These stem from negative schemas - a self schema is the pack of ideas we have about yourself. An ineptness schema is an expectation of failure and a self blame schema is taking responsibility for all misfortunes.
What are cognitive biases in terms of Beck’s negative triad?
Arbitrary interference - conclusions drawn without sufficient evidence.
Minimisation - minimising any positive events
This can potentially lead to depression.
What did Ellis propose depression was caused from?
Ellis proposed that depression was mainly an event of irrational thoughts about external events.
What is Beck’s ABC model?
He proposed that an activation event caused irrational thoughts, which led to irrational emotions and thoughts, which led to the undesirable behaviour. The beliefs are a crucial difference between individuals who become depressed and those who do not.
What are examples of irrational beliefs in terms of Ellis’s ABC model?
An example of irrational beliefs are: I must always achieve perfection, I must be loved by everyone, and I must achieve in order to be worthwhile.
Does the cognitive approach to treating depression have practical applications?
Beck and Ellis form the basis of CBT for depression where negative beliefs are challenged.
High success rates of CBT validates this.
Is the cognitive approach to depression incomplete?
Does not fully outline the steps and processes of how the sufferer came to think like this.
Although negative thoughts are a symptom of depression, how did they arise in the first place?
Is there supporting research for the cognitive explanation for depression?
Temple Wisconsin studied uni students, none of which were suffering from depression, and assessed them every few months for two years.
17% of those with high scores on negative thinking went on to experience a period of depression compared to 1% of those with low scores.
Does the cognitive explanation of depression account for other aspects?
Takes into account aspects such as genes and environment.
Beck and Ellis both suggest that the environment contributes to negative thinking.
Ellis comments on activating events and Beck suggests thoughts are affected by rejection in childhood.
Are there theoretical weaknesses of the cognitive explanation of depression?
Some psychologists believe faulty thinking is a symptom of depression not the cause.
Depressed people have negative thoughts, but are these side effects or causes?
It could be due to chemical imbalances in the brain.
