Explaining Depression | Cognitive Approach | Aaron Beck & Albert Ellis | AQA Psychology | A-level

there always seems to be lots of talk and reports in the news about the increased rates of depression in society today and many have wondered how we can explain why so many people develop depression hey everyone welcome back to bear it in mind in this video we're going to look at the work of psychologists aaron beck and alba ellis who proposed different cognitive explanations for depression previously we've explored different definitions of abnormality as well as the characteristics of depression if you haven't seen those videos i encourage you to do so before watching this like i've said in previous videos it is important to be aware that for the a level psychology course the emphasis is just on one explanation for each condition so for phobias it's a behaviorist explanation for ocd a biological explanation and for depression it's a cognitive explanation that's not to say that there aren't other ways to explain these conditions there are it's just that for the a-level course the focus is on one type of explanation for each condition having said all that let's explore the two cognitive explanations for depression when we look at cognitive explanations we first need to be clear what we mean by the word cognitive this word refers to mental processes this includes things such as your thoughts your perceptions your attention and your memory explanation one is beck's cognitive triad theory of depression aaron beck proposed a three-part explanation for depression hence why it's called the triad theory triad meaning three the first part refers to what he called negative self schemas a schema is an organized unit of knowledge a package of ideas and information developed through experience some refer to it as a mental framework we have schemas for all sorts of things like how to make a cup of tea or how to drive a car each schemer has lots of individual pieces of information that we have combined and organized together into a single unit pattern or framework negative self schemas refer to how over time some people have developed patterns of thinking about themselves that are negative aaron beckini's theory suggests that these negative self schemas develop during childhood possibly through criticism and rejection they've received from significant people in their life including parents and peers the second part of beck's theory refers to how these negative cell schemas become cognitive biases and beck suggested that these develop as they become adults the word bias is getting at the idea that people can have an inclination or leaning towards a certain way of thinking a cognitive bias is an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern two examples of this include firstly over-generalizing this is where someone suffering from depression makes a sweeping conclusion based on something that has perhaps only occurred once then secondly catastrophizing this is where someone suffering from depression exaggerates a minor incident and believes it's a big disaster here's an example from a winnie the pooh episode relating to eor's birthday here we can see eeyore's distorted thinking at work tigger's so thoughtless with his bouncing why should they think of me nobody else does the third and final part of beck's theory is the negative triad now to be clear beck's whole theory is called the triad theory but one part of his triad theory is called the negative triad yeah i know thanks beck people suffering from depression according to beck have a negative and irrational view of themselves a negative and irrational view of the world and a negative and irrational view of the future what he called the negative triad negative self schemas and cognitive biases maintain this negative triad in eos case here's the negative view of himself [Music] just as i thought no better from this side in eos case here's his negative view of the world nobody minds nobody cares pathetic eeyore what's the matter what makes you think any things that matter you seem so sad why should i be sad it's my birthday the happiest day of the year your birthday of course can't you see all the presents no can't you see the cake the candles the picture no neither can i oh now based on this scenario for eol's birthday can you think about what er might say might be thinking if he had a negative view of the future the second cognitive explanation of depression is a lot easier to understand than beck's cognitive triad theory it's as easy as abc no really it's literally called the abc model this model was proposed by albert ellis where the focus here was to consider what good mental health looks like and then contrast that with depression his emphasis was on rationality on having rational thoughts as we explored in the video on characteristics of phobias depression and ocd the word rational means that something is reasonable and logical it makes sense whereas irrational means that something is unreasonable or not logical for ellis depression can be explained in terms of the irrational thinking that people have which then affects their emotions to understand how these irrational thoughts may explain depression ellis talked about it in terms of a b c a activating event this is simply the event that occurs in someone's life it could be sending a message to your boyfriend or girlfriend on whatsapp seeing that they read it but not getting a reply it is important to note that it's not the event that leads to depression but the next part of the model which is be beliefs here the focus is on the beliefs or the type of thoughts that a person has how they are interpreting the event that has happened in our whatsapp scenario some people might simply think that their boyfriend or girlfriend is unable to reply to their whatsapp message at that exact moment in time or maybe their batteries died on their phone on the other hand in the case of someone who's suffering from depression they may interpret the same event irrationally and the blue ticks of death could lead them to think that their boyfriend or girlfriend is off with someone else and the next message they receive might be one telling them that they've been dumped it is these irrational thoughts that lead to the third part of ellis's abc model c consequences this relates to the negative feelings and behaviors that are the result of the negative beliefs the negative thoughts of b beliefs are thoughts to be a connecting bridge between the situation the activating event and the feelings the consequences if our thoughts are rational according to ellis then we have good mental health our emotions are healthy for example when they don't get the whatsapp message reply it doesn't bother them all that much they aren't checking their phone every two minutes they just get on with their day whereas for the suffer of depression the consequences of their irrational thoughts are unhealthy emotions which means symptoms such as lowered mood they might feel lonely down and unmotivated and low self-esteem they might start criticizing themselves in terms of how they look and act to name a few they're depressed now let's discuss the cognitive explanations of depression supporting evidence for the cognitive explanations comes from research by tag harvey ital in 2006. 29 clinically depressed people were compared with 34 normal controls on a measurement of irrational beliefs what they found was that consistent with alice's abc model depressed people scored higher in irrational beliefs than controls who were not depressed additionally this study was conducted in iran and was a replication of previous research that had been conducted in westernized cultures so these findings not only show support for the cognitive explanation of depression but also shows that it has the potential to apply across cultures for other supporting research vizilla etal in 2016 conducted a meta-analysis that looked at what the research showed over the past 60 years about the relationship between irrational beliefs and psychological distress overall they found that irrational beliefs were positively associated with various types of distress including depression therefore based on this research it could be argued that the role of cognition specifically irrational thinking is an important factor in explaining depression a strength of the cognitive explanation of depression is seen in its practical application alice's abc model has been used as a treatment for depression known as cognitive behavioral therapy or you might have heard of it as cbt this extends ls's abc model to a b c d e with d standing for disputing and e standing for effects cbt focuses on challenging the irrational thoughts that sufferers of depression may have and turning these into more rational thoughts these are then combined with a coping strategy to help people improve the effectiveness of this treatment can be seen in how commonly it is used as a treatment on the nhs to currently help people with depression however one of the main limitations of the cognitive explanation of depression is that it could be argued that it blames the patient rather than the situation because the focus on explaining depression is on a person's thoughts this means that the cause of the depression is the person themselves their thoughts by blaming the person this could miss important situational factors involved in depression and potentially make things worse for example if someone is depressed because they are suffering at home due to domestic abuse then telling them that they need to change the way they think about it isn't going to help very much what they really need is to get out of that situation the cognitive explanation doesn't take that into account and finally we can also compare the cognitive explanation depression with an alternative explanation in this case a biological one some research shows that in some cases lower levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin have been associated with depression this is evident when patients who are suffering from depression see their symptoms improve when they are given antidepressant drugs known as ssris which specifically aim to increase serotonin levels therefore it could be argued that the cognitive exploration alone may be oversimplified when it comes to understanding depression and that taking into account the influence of biological processes is an important part to include for more on the cognitive treatment of depression see this video and for other videos relating to psychopathology check out this playlist if you would like more information relating to mental health whether to help you or others do check out the links in the description for some helpful online resources and support services i hope you found this video helpful and we'll see you in the next one

Channel: Bear it in MIND

Views: 8,525

Keywords: How to explain depression, Explaining depression, Depression, Cognitive explanations of depression, Psychopathology, A-level revision, A-level Psychology, Triad theory, ABC model, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, CBT, Psychology, Revision, Evaluating cognitive explanation, Cognitive approach, bear it in mind

Id: XxRnoUckq0c

Length: 11min 51sec (711 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 15 2021