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Depression (The cognitive approach to explaining depression (Ellis'…

- - - - Research support for the role of irrational thinking When asked to interpret written material, depressed participants made more errors in logic than non-depressed participants (Hammen and Krantz, 1976). Depressed participants who were given negative automatic-thought statements became increasingly depressed (Bates et al., 1999). Both studies support hypotheses derived from the cognitive approach.
      - Practical applications in therapy Cognitive explanations presented here have both been usefully applied in CBT which is consistently found to be the best treatment for depression, especially when used in conjunction with drug treatments. This lends support to the underlying expalnation.
    - - Blames the patient rather than situational factors Resposibility for depression and recovery rests with the individual. Situational factors may be side lined. Which altering thinking patterns does not deal with the problem's root cause.
      - More complex explanations The diathesis-stress approach suggests that a genetic propensity for depression renders individuals more vulnerable to the effects of a negative irrational thinking. The success of drug therapies for depression suggests that neurotransmitters play an important role. Cognitive explanations alone do not account for these possibilities.
- - - - Research support Ellis (1957) claimed an average of 27 sessions to complete treatment and a 90% success rate. REBT and CBT do well in outcome studies of depression.
      - Support for behavioural activation Babyak et al. (2000) randomly assigned 156 depressed adults to 4 months od aerobic excercise, drug treatment or both. All patients improved, but 6 months later, the excerise group had lower relapse rates than the medication group, especially if they had continued with an exercise regime.
      - Combination with alternative treatments Cuijpers et al. found that CBT was especially effective when used with drug therapy
    - - Individual differences CBT works less well with people who have high levels of irrational beliefs that are both regid and resistant to change (Elkin et al, 1995), or when realistic stressors cannot be resolved by therapy (Simons et al., 1995). The directness of REBT does not suit everyone; some people want to share their worries without expending the cognitive effort necessary for recovery (Ellis, 2011)
      - The Dodo Bird effect The dodo bird effect was named after the Dodo in Lewis Carroll's Alice in wonderland who decided that everyone should win. Rosenzweig (1936) argued that therapeutic effectivenes was due mainly to common factors in different psychotherapies, such as talking to a sympathetic person.