Depression
- Created by: zoe_chetty
- Created on: 17-12-18 11:33
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- Depression
- Behavioural characteristics
- Activity levels
- Typically have reduced levels of energy, making them lethargic. Tend to withdraw from work, educaton, social life
- Sometimes can lead to opposite, psychomotor agitation, struggle to relax, pacing
- Disruption to sleep and eating behaviour
- Sufferers may experience insomnia or hypersomnia.
- Appetite and eating may increase/ decrease
- Aggression and self-harm
- Often irritable, they can become aggressive. Can lead to physical aggression directed at the self
- Activity levels
- Emotional characteristics
- Lowered mood
- Patients often describe themselves as 'worthless' and 'empty'
- Anger
- May frequently experience anger directed at the self or others
- Lowered self-esteem
- Sufferers like themselves less than usual
- Lowered mood
- Cognitive characteristics
- Poor concentration
- Depression is associated with poor levels of concentration
- Dwelling on the negative
- Ignore the positives in a situation. Bias towards recalling unhappy events
- Absolutist thinking
- Sufferers think in terms of situations being all good or all bad
- Poor concentration
- Cognitive approach to explaining depression
- Beck's explanation
- Faulty info processing
- When depressed we focus on the negative aspects of a situation, ignoring positives. Think in 'black and white' terms
- Negative self-schemas
- A self-schema is a packet of knowledge we have about ourselves. Therefore we interpret all information about ourselves in a negative way. Can lead to cognitive biases in thinking.
- The negative triad
- The self- individuals seem themselves as being helpless, worthless and inadequate
- The world- where obstacles are perceived within one's environment that cannot be dealt with
- The future- personal worthlessness is seen as blocking any improvements
- Evaluation
- Good supporting evidence- Grazioli and Terry assessed 65 pregnant women for cog vulnerability and depression before and after birth. Found that women judged to have been high in cog vulnerability were more likely to suffer depression.
- Blames the client- suggests client is responsible. This is good because it gives the client the power to change. But it may lead the client/ therapist to overlook situational factors.
- Practical applications in CBT- can help patients to get a happier life back
- Faulty info processing
- Ellis's ABC model
- A-activating event, something that happens in the environment around you
- B-beliefs, you hold a belief about the event or situation
- C-consequence, you have an emotional response to your belief
- The activating event triggers an emotion that is seen as true, the consequence is that the individual becomes depressed because they have a negative view about themselves
- Evaluation
- Partial explanation- only explains reactive depression from activating events
- It doesn't explain all aspects of depression- anger and hallucinations
- Beck's explanation
- Cognitive approach to treating depression
- CBT
- Most commonly used psych treatment for depression
- The therapist and patient jointly identify where there might be negative or irrational thoughts hat will benefit from challenge
- CBT then involves working to change neg/ irrational thoughts and put more effective behaviours into place
- Beck's cognitive therapy
- Identify automatic thoughts about the world, the self and the future
- Also aims to help patients test the reality of their beliefs. May occur through homework. The therapist can 'reality test' the patients thoughts and experiences
- Ellis's REBT
- D- dispute E- effect. Aims to identify and dispute irrational thoughts
- Evaluation
- It is effective- compared to anti depressant drugs, 81% of CBT group and 81% of drug group were significantly improved
- Individual differences- CBT appears to be less suitable for people who have high levels of irrational beliefs
- May not work in severe cases
- CBT
- Behavioural characteristics
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