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Aaron Beck

The document summarizes Aaron Beck's cognitive model of depression and anxiety. It describes Beck's concepts of the cognitive triad, negative self-schemas, cognitive biases and distortions. It also outlines applications of cognitive-behavioral therapy including collaborative empiricism, Socratic dialogue and guided discovery.

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alishba iqbal 1112
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88 views

Aaron Beck

The document summarizes Aaron Beck's cognitive model of depression and anxiety. It describes Beck's concepts of the cognitive triad, negative self-schemas, cognitive biases and distortions. It also outlines applications of cognitive-behavioral therapy including collaborative empiricism, Socratic dialogue and guided discovery.

Uploaded by

alishba iqbal 1112
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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AARON BECK MODEL

Aaron Beck believes that a person’s reaction to specific upsetting thoughts may contribute to
abnormality. As we confront the many situations that arise in life, both comforting and upsetting
thoughts come into our heads. Beck calls these unbidden cognition’s automatic thoughts.

When a person’s stream of automatic thoughts is very negative you would expect a person to
become depressed (I’m never going to get this essay finished, my girlfriend fancies my best friend,
I’m getting fat, I have no money, my parents hate me - have you ever felt like this?). Quite often
these negative thoughts will persist even in the face of contrary evidence.

The Cognitive Triad

The cognitive triad are three forms of negative (i.e helpless and critical) thinking that are typical of
individuals with depression: namely negative thoughts about the self, the world and the future.
These thoughts tended to be automatic in depressed people as they occurred spontaneously.

As these three components interact, they interfere with normal cognitive processing, leading to
impairments in perception, memory and problem solving with the person becoming obsessed with
negative thoughts.

Negative Self-Schemas

Beck believed that depression prone individuals develop a negative self-schema. They possess a set
of beliefs and expectations about themselves that are essentially negative and pessimistic.

Beck claimed that negative schemas may be acquired in childhood because of a traumatic event.
Experiences that might contribute to negative schemas include:

● Death of a parent or sibling.

● Parental rejection, criticism, overprotection, neglect, or abuse.

● Bullying at school or exclusion from peer group.

People with negative self-schemas become prone to making logical errors in their thinking and they
tend to focus selectively on certain aspects of a situation while ignoring equally relevant information.

Cognitive biases:

Beck (1967) identifies a number of illogical thinking processes (i.e., distortions of thought processes).
These illogical thought patterns are self-defeating and can cause great anxiety or depression for the
individual.

1. Arbitrary Inference: This distortion is akin to jumping to conclusions wherein the person
concludes without any supporting or relevant evidence that the worst possible outcome will
happen. Drawing conclusions on the basis of sufficient or irrelevant evidence: for example,
thinking you are worthless because an open-air concert you were going to see has been rained
off.

2. Selective Abstraction: In this distortion, most relevant information about a situation is ignored
while one minor detail provides the basis for a negative conclusion. Focusing on a single aspect
of a situation and ignoring others: E.g., you feel responsible for your team losing a football
match even though you are just one of the players on the field.

3. Dichotomous or Polarized Thinking: This distorted thinking style is common among clients with
borderline or narcissistic personality traits. People and situations are usually evaluated as black
or white, good or bad.

4. Labelling and Mislabelling: All humans use labels to describe themselves and others.
Unfortunately, sometimes people hang onto inaccurate or maladaptive labels, despite their lack
of utility.

5. Overgeneralization: when an individual generalizes and comes to a strong conclusion on the


basis of a single or small number of incidents. drawing broad negative conclusions on the basis
of a single insignificant event. E.g., you get a D for an exam when you normally get straight As
and you, therefore, think you are stupid.

6. Personalization: This distortion is sometimes referred to as self-referencing. Victims of this


distortion take everything personally. Attributing the negative feelings of others to yourself. E.g.,
your teacher looks cross when he comes into the room, so he must be cross with you.

7. Magnification and Minimization: This distortion is also referred to as overestimation and


underestimation. It occurs when a client makes a mountain out of a molehill (and vice versa).
Magnification: exaggerating the importance of undesirable events. E.g., if you scrape a bit of
paint work on your car and, therefore, see yourself as a totally awful driver. Minimisation:
underplaying the significance of an event. E.g., you get praised by your teachers for an excellent
term’s work, but you see this as trivial.

Application of psychotherapy:

For Beck psychological disturbances may be the result of faulty learning, making incorrect inferences
on bases of inadequate or incorrect information and not distinguishing adequately between
imagination and reality.

Cognitive model of depression:

● Cognitive triad characterizes depression (negative views of self, world, and future)

● Perceives self as inadequate, deserted, and worthless.

● Perceives future as pessimistic , reflecting the belief that current troubles will not improve.

● Increased dependency reflects the view of self as incompetent, worthless, expects failure.

Cognitive model of anxiety disorders:

The anxious persons perception of danger is either based on false assumptions or exaggerated.
Anxious individuals have difficulty recognizing cues for safety and the evidence that will reduce the
threat of danger.

Applications in psychotherapy:

Three fundamental concepts in therapy


1. Collaborative empiricism - Collaborative empiricism, which involves a systemic process of
therapist and patient working together to establish common goals in treatment, has been found
to be one of the primary change agents in cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). According to
Beck and Dozois, “Collaborative empiricism means that the patient and the therapist become co-
investigators both in ascertaining the goals for treatment and investigating the patient's
thoughts.

2. Socratic dialogue- The therapists carefully design a series of questions to promote new learning
and to arrive at logical conclusions based on questions posed by the therapist.

Serves the following purposes:

● Clarify or define problems

● Assist in the identification of thoughts and images

● Examine the meanings of events for the patient

● Assesses the consequences of maintaining maladaptive thoughts and behaviors

3. Guided discovery- Through guided discovery the patient modifies maladaptive beliefs and
assumptions. Therapists serves as a guide who elucidates problem behaviors and errors in logic
by designing new experiences that lead to acquisition of new skills and perspectives.

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