Psychopathology - Depression (GREY?) Flashcards
What are the characteristics of depression?
Emotional, behavioural and cognitive
Emotional: Lowered mood, anger and lowered self-esteem.
Behavioural: Low activity levels, disruption to sleep and eating behaviour, aggression and self-harm.
Cognitive: Poor concentration, dwelling on the negative, absolutist thinking.
What is the DSM criteria for depression?
A - 5/9 symptoms for 2 weeks; at least one symptom must be 1 or 2.
1 - Depressed mood
2- Loss of interest
3 - Weight loss or gain
4 - Insomnia or hypersomnia
5 - Agitation or retardation
6 - Fatigue or loss of energy
7 - Feelings of worthlessness/inappropriate guilt
8 - Inability to concentrate/indecisiveness
9 - Thoughts of death or suicidal thoughts
B - Failure to function adequately/clinically significant distress
What are the cognitive mechanisms in depression?
Ideas of worthlessness Thoughts of guilt Diminished ability to think/concentrate Indecisiveness Recurrent thoughts of death Suicide plan How people assess the same situation varies because they have different cognitions.
What is faulty information processing?
Believed that depressed people process information in a faulty way. They tend to selectively attend to the negative aspects of a situation and ignore the positive aspects. They also make certain attributions: internal - external global - specific stable - unstable
What are negative schemas?
A negative package of information that we have about ourselves. They interrupt all information about themselves in a negative way.
What is the negative triad?
Depressed people have automatic negative thoughts about themselves, the world and the future and are trapped in these.
What is the biological explanation of depression?
Suggests genes and neurotransmitters may cause depression. Anti-depressant drug treatments work - the medication alters the levels of specific neurotransmitters and reduces the symptoms which suggest neurotransmitters play an important role.
