The cognitive approach to explaining Depression - PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

The cognitive approach to explaining Depression:
The cognitive approach focuses on how thinking shapes out behaviour. Depression is seen as being caused by negative and irrational thought processes.

Beck (1967) attempted to explain a cognitive vulnerability to depression in three parts:

1.     Faulty Information Processing: when we are depressed, we tend to focus on the negative aspects of a situation and ignore the positives.  We also tend to blow small things out of proportion (“magnification”).

2.     Negative self-schemas: a schema is a cognitive framework that helps us to organise information and make sense of the world (“package of knowledge”) – if we have a negative self-schema, we tend to interpret information about ourselves in a negative way.

3.     The Negative Triad: when we are depressed, negative thoughts of the world, the future and ourselves become linked.

EVALUATION OF BECK:

-        There is a range of evidence to support the idea that depression and Beck’s 3-criteria for a cognitive vulnerability are linked. Grazioli and Terry (2000) assessed 65 pregnant women for cognitive vulnerability and depression before and after birth – they found that women judged to have a high cognitive vulnerability were more likely to suffer from post-natal depression. This provides support for Beck’s explanation.

-        Beck’s theory has led to practical applications – for example, in treatment for depression (CBT), therapists challenge the negative thoughts and encourage patients to test whether or not they are true. Such therapies have been very successful in the treatment of depression and hence, Beck’s theory has led to the improved quality of life and living for many people and therefore it has been incredibly useful.

-        Alloy et al. (1999) followed the thinking styles of young Americans in their early 20’s for 6 years. Their thinking style was tested and they were placed in either the ‘positive thinking group’ or ‘negative thinking group’. After 6 years the researchers found that only 1% of the positive group developed depression compared to 17% of the ‘negative’ group. These results indicate there may be a link between cognitive style and development of depression.

-        It is difficult to know if these negative thoughts cause depression, or if the depression causes the negative thoughts and the relationship between the two is purely correlational and hence, we cannot conclude that such theory is completely accurate – for example, what if it is just a third factor that affects both our negative thoughts and triggers the depression, rather than the two being linked at all?

Ellis’ ABC model:
Ellis focuses on irrational thoughts as the source of depression: he believes it’s not what happens to someone that causes the depression, but rather how they deal with it.

A: Activating Event – an event occurs, for example, you walk past your friend, but they ignore you, despite you saying ‘hi’.

B: Belief – your belief is your interpretation of the event, which can either be ration or irrational.
A rational interpretation of the event might be that your friend simply didn’t see/hear you.
An irrational interpretation of the event might be that you think your friend hates you and never wants to talk to you again.

C: Consequence - According to Ellis, rational beliefs lead to healthy emotional outcomes (for example, I will talk to my friend later and see if he/she is okay), whereas irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy emotional outcomes, including depression (for example, I will ignore my friend and delete their mobile number, as they clearly don’t want to talk to me).

EVALUATION OF ELLIS:

-        One strength of the cognitive explanation for depression is its application to therapy. The cognitive ideas have been used to develop effective treatments for depression, including Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), which was developed from Ellis’s ABC model. Such therapies attempt to identify and challenge negative, irrational thoughts and have been successfully used to treat people with depression, providing further support to the cognitive explanation of depression.

-        However, one weakness of the cognitive approach is that it does not explain the origins of irrational thoughts and most of the research in this area is correlational. Therefore, we are unable to determine if negative, irrational thoughts cause depression, or whether a person’s depression leads to a negative mindset. Therefore, it is possible that other factors, for example genes and neurotransmitters, are the cause of depression and one of the side effects of depression are negative, irrational thoughts.

-        Ellis’ model blames the client rather than situational factors. This may lead to the client or therapist overlooking situational factors – for example, not considering how life events or family problems may be contributing to the depression – meaning that Ellis’ model may not always be the most useful way of explaining depression.