The cognitive approach to explaining depression

Irrational beliefs.

A) Activating event
B) Belief, may be rational or irrational
C) Consequence - rational beliefs -> healthy emotions, whereas irrational beliefs -> unhealthy emotions eg depression

Musturbatory thinking - source of irrational beliefs - thinking of certain ideas/assumptions must be true for individual to be happy. Ellis identified 3 most important irrational beliefs:
 - I must be approved of/accepted by people I find important
 - I must do well/very well, or I am worthless
 - The world must give me happiness, or I will die.
If hold these assumptions, bound to be depressed - if fail exam, become depressed not because failed exam, but b/c have irrational belief regarding failure.

Depressed people acquired neg schema during childhood - tendency to adopt neg view of world. May be caused eg by parental and/or peer rejection + criticisms by teachers. Activated when person encounters new situation resembling conditions where schemas learned. Neg schemas -> cognitive biases in thinking.

Neg schemas + cognitive biases maintain what Beck calls neg triad - pessimistic + irrational view of 3 key elements in persons' belief system:
 - the self - 'I'm plain + undersirable, what is there to like?'
 - the world 'I can understand why people don't like me. They would all prefer someone else's company'.
 - the future - 'I am always going to be on my own, there is nothing that is going to change this'.

Irrational thinking supported by Hammen + Krantz (1976) - found depressed participants made more errors in logic when asked to inrerpret written material than non-depressed participants. May be that depressed individual develops neg way of thinking b/c of depression rather than other way round. 

Practical applications - CBT - consistenly found to be best treatment for depression especially when used in conjunction w/ drug treatments. Have specific implications for success of therapy + therapy supports explanation - if depression alleviated by challenging irrational thinking, suggests thoughts had role in depression in 1st place.

Blames client rather than situational factors - suggests client responsible for disorder - may lead client/therapist to overlook situational factors. Disorder in client's mind, recovery lies in changing that.

Irrational beliefs may not be irrational. Alloy + Abrahamson (1979) suggest depressive realists tend to see things for what they are - found depressed people gave more accurate estimates of likelihood of disaster than 'normal' controls, + called this - 'sadder but wiser' effect.

Bio approach suggests genes + neurotransmitters cause depression - Zhang et al (2005) found role of low levels of neurotransmitter serotonin in depressed people + also found gene related to this 1-x more common in people w/ depression - success of drug therapies suggests neurotransmitters do play role.