Causes of Depression - Cognitive

    Aaron T. Beck, who developed the theory behind Cognitive theory of depression, proposes that depression results of the tendency to view oneself, ones world and ones future in a negative manner. This view is formally called the ‘negative triad’. It is theorized that images and thoughts influence emotions and behaviors and that ones behavior is influenced by the ‘negative triad’. This negative view is usually a distortion of reality. The person develops a system of viewing the self, the world and the future which is global, rigid and negative. These schemes or system errors develop and are learned through relationships, unfavorable life situations often in childhood and the formative years. When the adult re-experiences similar events, these learned silent assumptions resurface.

Beck believed that depressed people process information through the following system errors:
(Beck, 1967)

• Arbitrary inference: one draws a conclusion that is irrational to the evidence
• Selective abstraction: to select the one aspect of the situation that is negative and focus on it
• Overgeneralization: have rules based on one experience and carry that rule to all experiences
• Magnification and minimization: overestimate the meaning of undesirable events and devalue desirable events
• Personalization: relate external events to oneself without evidence
• All-or-nothing thinking: thinking is rigid, black or white no in-betweens

    People who are predisposed to depression have acquired the ‘negative triad’ through early experiences. As above, the early experiences shape the person’s schemes of the self, world and future. These negative schemes may stay latent until activated by stresses to which the person is sensitive.

    Each person is vulnerable to different stresses and experience stress in different ways. The environment and relationships do effect the depressed person and visa versa. When someone is depressed, the relationship between the symptoms of depression and the thoughts become a viscous cycle, like a feedback loop feeding off each other.

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