Mood Disorders - COGNITIVE EXPLANATION

Beck's Dysfunctional Thinking 

•  The cognitive triad - automatic negative cognitions about themselves, the world and the future

•  Faulty information processing - focus on negative interpretations and overgeneralize and magnify them

•  Negative self-schemas - perceiving and interpreting information to fit maladaptive schemas 

This will only lead to depression if a critical life event is encountered which triggers dysfunctional thinking.

The learned helplessness theory

Seligman found that in a experiment with dogs, when the dogs has been given uncontrollable electric shocks in one situation, they learnt not to try to control the shocks in a situation where they were controllable and behaved…