Depression from Cognitive-Behavioral Perspective - Coursework Example

Depression from a Behavioral Cognitive Perspective Depression from a Behavioral, Cognitive Perspective Introduction The behavioral, cognitive perspective of depression seems to show that the cognitions of a human being, that is, thoughts and beliefs, can shape the behavior, and emotions of an individual. According to Aaron Beck (2006), when a person attributes, external events to maladaptive attitudes and beliefs, such a person can then develop symptoms of depression. Individuals who are depressed have a low self-evaluation, and tend to suffer from low self-esteem issues (McGinn & Lata 2000). Such persons exhibit characteristics such as: self-criticism, exaggeration of difficulties and problems, feelings of desperation where a person feels like escaping or dying, and having ideas of deprivation. Insight into this field is necessary because in the society, there are many people suffering from depression and one cannot dismiss it as a simple condition that does not require attention. The depressive cognitions can be learned by observation. For example, if a child comes from a dysfunctional family, he or she may develop the depressive cognition if the parents fail to deal with their issues amicably and timely. If a person lacks experience that would make them adapt to stressful situations, he/she may fail to develop adaptive skills to help him or her cope with the challenges in life. Depressed people think differently from those who are not suffering from depression and this is the reason why they get depressed. The cognitive model of depression is defined by three concepts. The first is known as the cognitive triad. This is the whereby depressed patients have negative feelings about themselves, the world around them, and the future ahead. The second is known as schemas where depressed people adapt to a pattern of maladaptive beliefs and thoughts. The third concept is whereby individuals develop cognitive errors in their thinking. In this case, the depressed individuals develop negative and unrealistic perceptions about reality. McGinn, L.K. (2000). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of Depression: Theory, Treatment, and Empirical Status. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 54(2), 257. In the first part of this article, McGinn and Lata deal with the cognitive theories of depression and look into this aspect in a deep sense. Those who fall into depression do so because of looking at life in a negative way. The negative thoughts hinder any chances of success in life, mainly because people who are depressed cannot see a positive way to get out of any situation that is stressing them in life. Such people tend to have negative perceptions of life, and the experiences that they go through in life. According to McGinn and Lata (2007), at the slightest challenge, these people get depressed, and have a low opinion of themselves. People who are depressed will feel inadequate, worthless, deficient and unlovable by those around them. These people feel that the environment around them is full of obstacles, and consequently they do not see any means of making a breakthrough. All that they see is failure around them and an overwhelming environment that is beyond control. Such thoughts could be overwhelming for these individuals and may be devastating for them. It creates a plateau in the life of the depressed individuals where they cannot make a step ahead in their life. Depressed people will see no hope in the future. To them, better days are in the past. Therefore, they do not see they need to put in any effort to make their lives better in the days to come. Such an attitude contributes to the failure of these people as they tend to think that there are people who are destined for success while on their part, they are meant to fail. McGinns and Lata (2007) justify this stand by giving a situation where people going through cognitive behavioral depression remember the people around them when they failed in the past. They may also remember situations where they did not live up to the standards that they had set. These thoughts make them feel worthless and maintaining the negative thoughts leads to depression. Depressed people do not recognize the times that they were successful in whatever task they carried out. McGinn and Lata also cite Seligman’s work on learned helplessness and attribution. The authors state that past events influence the thinking of individuals, and can lead to depression. For example, after going through a stressful break up, a person may decide that he or she will neither move on nor marry. Such people blame the situations that go on in their lives on themselves, and feel that they are the cause of the problems that they are going through. A person suffering from depression can still recover through cognitive therapy (McGinn, 2000). This therapy focuses on empowering the patient suffering from depression by remediating behavioral deficits that lead to depression. They give directions that can be used to improve this form of treatment in the future over clinical medicine. This article proceeds on the assumption that those people exhibiting negative thoughts in life could be suffering from depression. To the reader, the authors seem to suggest that the only thing that would come out of negative thoughts or attitude would be depression. However, it is natural to at times to hold negative thoughts. Taking the line of thought presented in this article is important in that it takes the correction of the same behavioral deficits to treat the challenge. This means that the person taking the patient through the therapy will use the same situations, but in a different way to treat the problem. Abandoning this line of thinking may lead to the person ignoring particular characteristics that would indicate that a patient is going down the drain due to depression. Nemade, R., Reiss, N., & Dombeck, M. (2007). Mental Health, Depression, Anxiety, Wellness, Family & Relationship Issues, Sexual Disorders & ADHD Medications. Retrieved December 10, 2014from http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=13006&cn=5 This article focuses on the integration of mental events into the framework of behavior. The major cause of depression is dysfunctional beliefs (Nemade, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2007). The frequency of a person’s negative thoughts influences the severity of the depressive symptoms. Nemade, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2007 give the example of someone who after being laid off from work feels that he or she is inadequate, and less qualified to get a job in the future. According to Nemade, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2007 that what a human being thinks about, can shape and determine what he or she pays attention to. Such a person tends to concentrate on those aspects in the environment that confirm the negative attitudes. Even when the situation is different such people tend to concentrate on what they know (Nemade, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2007). This is what leads to faulty information processing (Nemade, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2007). This will have an influence on the behavioral, cognitive perspectives of an individual. What is important to the people who are depressed is the negative thought and they tend to overlook the positive part. To depressed people, any meaning placed on negative events is significant, and consequently, they pay more attention to this. This condition is what has led to the development of Cognitive- Behavioral Therapy to correct this problem. This therapy is important in correcting the distorted thoughts and judgments. The pessimistic thoughts are changed to positive thoughts. The reason that the authors suggest this mode of correction is that it is what leads the person to misinterpret the facts in a negative way, and blame him or herself for all the misfortunes, as it acts as a negative bias. To the reader, this article proceeds on the assumption that a person exhibiting negative traits suffers from depression. This article as discussed is based on the integration of mental beliefs into the behavior of an individual. It is based on individual attitudes which mean different things at different times in life. There is also the assumption that the life of a man is generally a happy life, or rather, should be a happy and comfortable life. There are bound to be challenges in life and man, being an emotional being, ought to react to the situation. The time taken to recover will be what matters in assessing the depressive cases. This article provides a good analysis of the behavioral perspective of depression. Accepting the ideas put across in this article will help an individual to get a deeper understanding of depression from the causes to the treatment of the condition. If one rejects this argument, there is nothing else that would work in expounding this issue. The reason this is the position is that it has analyzed the relationship between cognitive behavior and depression in a clear and concise manner. Argument Evaluation The second article (Nemade, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2007) provides a compelling argument. Rather that picking generalized information, the authors analyze the situation. They focus on the integration of mental beliefs in the behavioral mechanism as a good analysis that gives insight into the issue of depression. The first article (McGinn, 2000) seems like it is a development of the ideas presented in the second without necessarily making any significant changes that would ignite debate in the area of the cognitive behavioral perspective of depression. The examples presented in this article are, however, good in shedding light, and giving the reader a deeper understanding of the behavioral cognitive perspective of depression. Another aspect that makes the argument in the second article (Nemade, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2007) more compelling is that besides analyzing the problem, it gives the reader an insight into the development of cognitive behavioral therapy in a clear manner. The reader is then able to understand the reason for the therapy and how it works. This work does not disregard the role that other forms of treatment play in treating depression unlike in the first article. Conclusion This paper is good in that it extends a person’s knowledge base when it comes to dealing with depression matters among individuals. The cognitive-behavioral perspective has completely unearthed a different angle of thinking, in understanding the reason people do the things they do. Normally, one would take circumstances, such as disappointments as just that: disappointments. Through this work, one is able to tell that it is not just disappointment, but depression, which is kind of a fear of the unknown. After doing research on this paper, one views the aspect of depression from a new angle. One realizes that every person is a potential candidate for depression provided one concentrates more on the negative things and challenges in life. Before doing this research, there was the general feeling that people who concentrated more on the negative aspects in life overlooking the positives were just cautious. But after the research, one now sees this differently as something that can trigger depressive feelings. However, it is important to take note that it is not all such cases that should be interpreted to mean depression, but all the same nothing should be left to chance, one will be more careful to focus on the positive things in life: something like making lemonade with the lemons in life. References Beck, A., & Freeman, A. (2004). Cognitive therapy of personality disorders (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. McGinn, L.K. (2000). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of Depression: Theory, Treatment, and Empirical Status. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 54(2), 257. Nemade, R., Reiss, N., & Dombeck, M. (2007). Mental Health, Depression, Anxiety, Welness, Family & Relationship Issues, Sexual Disorders & ADHD Medications. Retrieved December 10, 2014,from http://www.mentalhealth.net/poc/viewdoc.php?type=doc&id=13006&cn=5 Read More