COGNITIVE APPROACH TO PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

Understand how the cognitive approach explains mental illness in terms of beliefs, thoughts and perceptions

Learning objectives
By the end of the lesson youll be able to:
Describe and explain the principles and

assumptions of the cognitive approach, and how it explains psychopathology.

Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of

these explanations.

The approaches to psychopathology

1.

On your own, think what the principles and assumptions are for the previous 3 approaches to psychopathology.

2.

Turn to the other person in your pair and see what they came up with.

3. Share these with the rest

of the class.

Cognitive approach
Mental illness is due to cognitive processes (beliefs, thoughts, perceptions)

Schemata: Organised systems of knowledge we use to understand and interpret the world

Negative schemata can lead to:

Negative automatic thoughts: Automatically thinking the worst in every situation

Features of the cognitive approach

Cognitive biases: (different types of negative automatic thoughts)

Becks negative triad

Musturbatory beliefs Ellis ABC model

Activity
In your groups, read the materials youve been given and discuss this to make sure you understand it. You then have 10 minutes to prepare to teach this to the rest of the class.

Examples of cognitive biases that may be used by depressed people Cognitive bias Minimisation Explanation Bias towards minimizing success in life, e.g. excellent exam results due to luck or easy paper. Bias towards maximising importance of failures (even small ones), e.g. not completing cryptic crossword means youre stupid. Bias towards focusing on only the negative aspects of life and ignoring wider picture

Maximisation

Selective abstraction

All or nothing thinking

Tendency to see things as one or the other, e.g. a success or a failure, not good/bad at different things.

Becks (1967) cognitive triad model of depression

Negative views about the world everyone is against me because Im worthless

Negative views about the future Ill never be good at anything

Negative views about yourself Im worthless and inadequate

I absolutely MUST, under practically all conditions and at all times, perform well and win the approval of others. If I fail in these important respects, that is awful and I am a bad, incompetent, unworthy person, who will probably always fail and deserves to suffer

Feelings of anxiety, panic, depression, despair, worthlessness.

"Other people MUST treat me nicely, considerately and fairly. Otherwise, it is terrible and they are rotten, bad, unworthy people who will always treat me badly and do not deserve a good life and should be severely punished for acting so abominably to me."

Feelings of anger, rage, fury and vindictiveness

"The conditions under which I live MUST be favourable, safe, hassle-free, and quickly and easily enjoyable, and if they are not that way it's awful and horrible and I can't bear it. I can't ever enjoy myself at all. My life is impossible and hardly worth living."

Feelings of frustration, discomfort, intolerance, anger, depression

Ellis ABC model:

A
Activating event

B
Beliefs about this event

C
Consequences of these beliefs

A: Activating event
Mary and her boyfriend split up

Rational thoughts
Mary tells herself that although it is a sad situation they were not compatible and she may learn from the experience

Irrational thoughts B: Beliefs about A

Mary tells herself that the break up is her fault and that she is not loveable, and so will fail at future relationships

C: Consequences of B
Desirable emotions Undesirable emotions

Mary feels sad, but hopeful that she will have successful future relationships

Mary feels guilty that she spoilt the relationship and that she is unlovable

Desirable

behaviour

Undesirable

behaviour

Mary looks forward to forming new healthy relationships and tries to learn from the experience

Mary resolves not to form new relationships as she will only fail and get hurt again

Evaluation
Sometimes negative beliefs might actually be an accurate reflection of reality.
Depressive realism

not irrational or maladapative, just relavant to the life circumstances of the individual.