Beck’s cognitive triad
Essentially Beck believes that a depressed person has developed a negative set of schemas (schemata) upon which their expectations about life are based. For example they may have developed a self-blame schema which makes them feel responsible for all the things in their life that go wrong or an ineptness schema that causes them to expect failure every time.
Negative schemas
These negative schemas are caused by cognitive biases (faulty perceptions if you like): Some examples of cognitive biases suggested by Beck:
Over-generalisation: an overall negative conclusion about all situations based on one, perhaps trivial event. For example a bad test result in a maths lesson convinces the person that they are stupid and should not be going to University!
Arbitrary interference: an assumption arising from no evidence at all. For example you arrange a barbecue and it rains. Person assumes they are useless!
According to Beck these three types of cognition: views, schemas and biases interact and in doing so reinforce each other eventually leading to clinical depression.
A cognitive perspective would not be complete without schemas! Memory, Piaget etc?
Cognitive Triad
The triad involves unrealistically negative views about self, the world and the future. According to Beck this negative outlook would have originated in childhood, perhaps due to bereavement, overly critical parents or teachers etc.
Essentially Beck believes that a depressed person has developed a negative set of schemas (schemata) upon which their expectations about life are based. For example they may have developed a self-blame schema which makes them feel responsible for all the things in their life that go wrong or an ineptness schema that causes them to expect failure every time.
Negative schemas
These negative schemas are caused by cognitive biases (faulty perceptions if you like): Some examples of cognitive biases suggested by Beck:
Over-generalisation: an overall negative conclusion about all situations based on one, perhaps trivial event. For example a bad test result in a maths lesson convinces the person that they are stupid and should not be going to University!
Arbitrary interference: an assumption arising from no evidence at all. For example you arrange a barbecue and it rains. Person assumes they are useless!
According to Beck these three types of cognition: views, schemas and biases interact and in doing so reinforce each other eventually leading to clinical depression.
A cognitive perspective would not be complete without schemas! Memory, Piaget etc?
Cognitive Triad
The triad involves unrealistically negative views about self, the world and the future. According to Beck this negative outlook would have originated in childhood, perhaps due to bereavement, overly critical parents or teachers etc.
Faulty Information Processing
The tendency to focus on the negatives in any situation. You achieve an A in your Psychology but punish yourself because you didn’t get an A*
Evaluation
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Beck’s views on negative thinking do apply to depressed people. However, we still have the issue of what causes what and in particular does the negative thinking exist before the depression. This would have to be the case to establish a causal relationship.
Lewinsohn et al (2001) assessed teenagers with no existing history of depression and measured their level of negative thinking. A year later those scoring highest for negative thinking were the ones most likely to be diagnosed with major depression. This would seem to be clear evidence for the negative thinking arising before the depression. Davison & Neale (1998) and later Beck himself believe that the process is two way. Depression leads to negative thinking which in turn worsens the effects of the depressed mood. This is called bi-directional.
The most powerful support for the validity of the theory must be that it has led to THE most successful treatments for depression. These include Ellis’ Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) which encourages patients to recognise their negative thoughts and replace them with more realistic outlooks. Cognitive Behaviour Therapies in general have proved to be most effective in treating a variety of disorders including depression, eating disorders and anxiety disorders. For these to be so widely adopted and as we shall see later, be so successful, surely their underlying theory must have more than an element of validity.
However, it does have its knockers. McIntosh and Fischer (2000) believe it to be unnecessarily complex. Rather than the triad of self, world and future, they suggest that only self is necessary. All other negative thoughts then arise from this.
It doesn’t explain all types of depression and all symptoms of depression. Many patients with depression have anger issues that this model cannot explain. Freud’s theory of repressed anger seems best. Some forms of depression such as bipolar also involve some loss of contact with reality such as hallucinations and delusions which again Beck’s model is unable to explain.
One final point. It can also be seen to be an over-simplification. It is clear from what has already preceded this theory, that biology, particularly genes and brain chemistry are involved in depression. Beck’s model doesn’t consider these. Similarly he places too great an emphasis on cognitive and doesn’t consider the role of factors such as relationships with others. We shall consider these when we look at PIT.
Ellis’s ABC
Ellis’s theory predates that of Beck, his original theory being published in the excellent year of 1962 J
Whereas Beck was to focus on the negative, Ellis’s preoccupation was with the irrational.
For Ellis, good mental health was the product of rational thinking. By rational, Ellis meant thinking that brought happiness and banished pain and suffering. Poor mental health, on the other hand, such as anxiety and depression were the result of irrational thinking. The sort of thinking that prevented happiness and brought pain.
A. Activating Event
Ellis believed events in our lives were the trigger for depression. Events such as losing a job, family break up, disappointments etc. These activating events then trigger beliefs.
B. Beliefs
Ellis believed that the source of irrational beliefs were mustabatory thinking. The idea that certain things must happen or must be true for a person to be happy. The main three examples are:
a. I must be accepted by others, especially those I consider important
b. I must do well
c. The World must give me happiness.
Basically the individual is setting themselves up for disappointment and failure. This failure then results in unhappiness and ultimately, in some in depression.
C. Consequences
Mustabatory thinking and irrational beliefs result in emotional and behavioural consequences. One of these can be depression
Ellis believed events in our lives were the trigger for depression. Events such as losing a job, family break up, disappointments etc. These activating events then trigger beliefs.
B. Beliefs
Ellis believed that the source of irrational beliefs were mustabatory thinking. The idea that certain things must happen or must be true for a person to be happy. The main three examples are:
a. I must be accepted by others, especially those I consider important
b. I must do well
c. The World must give me happiness.
Basically the individual is setting themselves up for disappointment and failure. This failure then results in unhappiness and ultimately, in some in depression.
C. Consequences
Mustabatory thinking and irrational beliefs result in emotional and behavioural consequences. One of these can be depression
Evaluation
Depression can be endogenous or reactive. With the latter it is triggered by outside events (a reaction to whatever life throws at us). Ellis’s theory is clearly better able to explain this type of depression than the endogenous type, that seems to arise from nowhere. This is best explained by the biological model.
Practical Applications
Like Beck’s theory, Ellis’s has been widely applied with success through CBT. The fact that CBT has proven such a useful tool in the treatment of depression suggests a certain underlying validity in the validity of the theories upon which it is based.
Cause and Effect
To some extent, the cognitive model always faces this issue. Ellis and Beck both suggest that people with depression have faulty, negative or irrational thinking. They assume that this thinking has caused the depression. However, how do we know which came first, the depression or the thinking? Is it possible that suffering from depression has caused the person to start thinking in a negative fashion?
Blame game
Both Ellis and Beck seem to be placing some of the blame at the feet of the client. There is clearly more free-will here than we’ve seen with the behaviourist and biological models. People can, to some extent at least, control their thinking. This is a mixed blessing. It does suggest that people can be successfully treated. The thinking can be changed. However, it may also be interpreted as the patient being partially or totally to blame for the condition. Society tends to see psychological disorders differently to the way it sees physical disorder such as cancers and infections. This could make the situation worse.
Depression can be endogenous or reactive. With the latter it is triggered by outside events (a reaction to whatever life throws at us). Ellis’s theory is clearly better able to explain this type of depression than the endogenous type, that seems to arise from nowhere. This is best explained by the biological model.
Practical Applications
Like Beck’s theory, Ellis’s has been widely applied with success through CBT. The fact that CBT has proven such a useful tool in the treatment of depression suggests a certain underlying validity in the validity of the theories upon which it is based.
Cause and Effect
To some extent, the cognitive model always faces this issue. Ellis and Beck both suggest that people with depression have faulty, negative or irrational thinking. They assume that this thinking has caused the depression. However, how do we know which came first, the depression or the thinking? Is it possible that suffering from depression has caused the person to start thinking in a negative fashion?
Blame game
Both Ellis and Beck seem to be placing some of the blame at the feet of the client. There is clearly more free-will here than we’ve seen with the behaviourist and biological models. People can, to some extent at least, control their thinking. This is a mixed blessing. It does suggest that people can be successfully treated. The thinking can be changed. However, it may also be interpreted as the patient being partially or totally to blame for the condition. Society tends to see psychological disorders differently to the way it sees physical disorder such as cancers and infections. This could make the situation worse.
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Biography of top psychologist Aaron Temkin Beck (For information only)
Born on July 18, 1921, Aaron Temkin Beck was raised in Providence, Rhode Island. The youngest of five children, Aaron Beck notes that his mother was quite depressed prior to his birth due to the loss of two of her children. Beck was born two years after his only sister died of influenza. Beck believed himself to be a replacement child for his sister. Beck says he takes joy in the idea that, even at a young age, he was able to cure his mother’s depression. Not sure of his career path, after leaving school he decided to apply for medical schools because of his interest in the subject and in organic chemistry. In 1942 he started Yale with an interest in psychiatry but was put off by his first psychoanalytic class. “I thought it was nonsense. I could not really see what it fitted,” |
Click herAfter some years of practicing psychoanalytic theory, the lack of structure and scientific evidence proved to be insufficient for Dr. Beck. As he began to separate from the traditional practice, he slowly gained interest in what is now known as Cognitive Psychology.
Beck went on to become professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He is widely regarded as the father of cognitive therapy, and his pioneering theories are widely used in the treatment of clinical depression. Beck also developed self-report measures of depression and anxiety including Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Hopelessness Scale, Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSS), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Beck Youth Inventories. He is the President Emeritus of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy] and the Honorary President of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy which certifies qualified cognitive therapists.
All in all a good egg :)
Beck went on to become professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He is widely regarded as the father of cognitive therapy, and his pioneering theories are widely used in the treatment of clinical depression. Beck also developed self-report measures of depression and anxiety including Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Hopelessness Scale, Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSS), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Beck Youth Inventories. He is the President Emeritus of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy] and the Honorary President of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy which certifies qualified cognitive therapists.
All in all a good egg :)