Cognitive and Emotional Symptoms of Depressive Disorder - Essay Example

These thoughts feed the low and negative mood towards self and further deepen the experience of depression. Failure is a normal part of life, and everyone experiences failure to some extent in some aspect of life. But to the depressed person, each instance of failure becomes a trigger for cognitive distortion.

All-or-nothing thinking can make the individual lose perspective of the proportion of failures to successes, and they may begin to believe that each instance of failure is proof of their worthlessness. Even a single instance of not reaching a goal can be over generalized to suggest to the self that they are inadequate (Burns, 299). Over time, as each instance of success is attributed to ‘fluke’ events, and each instance of failure is blamed on the self, the person begins to believe that they are inadequate and weak.

They begin to label themselves as ‘bad’ or ‘failure’; and begin to feel more and more hopeless(Burns, 66). Studies like the one conducted by Anderson, Horowitz, and French (127; 130) show that depressed people are more likely to attribute failure to unchangeable traits in themselves. In effect, the depressed individual performs the opposite of the self-serving bias; and begins to blame themselves for each negative event, and feel incapable of taking credit for their successes. These thoughts and explanations of events that they offer themselves serve to further reduce their self-esteem and they begin to have lesser and lesser confidence in their own abilities (Burns, 58) and are more and more likely to believe themselves incapable of succeeding.

They are more likely to experience negative moods and anger with themselves due to these thoughts, which feeds the depression further. This process of depression leads to self-doubt and self-blame and the negative effect leading to further depressed mood is cyclical and can be very difficult to break without help.