Cognitive, Sociocultural, and Biological Approaches Towards Depression - Assignment Example

Cognitive therapy assists the patients to think and adopt a positive mindset and this is intended to help in improving the patient’s behavior, affect, and motivation. The patients in this treatment approach are guided through several well-organized learning activities. The patients are asked to document their negative mental images and these are used to check the connection between their thoughts and behavior. As the therapy progresses the patients are then taught to cope with these negative images and adapt accordingly to prevent negative behavior (Segal et al., 12-33). Depression is also largely initiated by sociocultural factors.

To assess these factors the physician must take into consideration different variables in society that may contribute to the development of certain psychological disorders. These can vary greatly and can include socioeconomic background, culture, gender, and the societal norms in the individual’s living environment. Several studies have been carried out to assess socioculturally and have found that poverty or economic instability were among the leading causes of depression within the community.

Men were also found to have higher possibilities of developing depression due to the roles they play in families (Segal et al., 12-33). However, women who live as single mothers had a slightly higher prevalence of depression. Therefore, this shows the impact these factors have on the development of psychological disorders. Some of these factors are controllable for example poverty rate, whilst others aren’t such as gender. Alleviating the controllable fact will result in fewer cases of depression.

Biological factors have also been associated with depression and they also have to be considered when assessing the condition as well as treatment approaches that will be taken. The biological aspects of depression involve hormonal imbalance and the depletion of production of certain neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine which are all low in a depressive state. These transmitters especially serotonin are responsible for arousal and hence their depletion will result in low mood.

Hormones such as oxytocin have been found by many studies to be connected with emotions and release of this hormone was found to be high in happy states indicating a possible treatment approach for depression (Segal et al., 12-33). In summation, depression is a disorder that has many sides and can be assessed, treated, or defined in several ways including the ones mentioned above.