Depression has been traditionally viewed as an affective disorder and disordered mood is considered the cardinal symptom, responsible for the patient’s behavioral, cognitive and psychological deficits.
According to Aaron Beck in 1967, the most salient psychological symptom of depression is the profoundly altered thinking or cognition.
Aaron Temkin Beck is an American psychiatrist and a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. Beck is the pioneering figure in cognitive therapy, one of the most influential and empirically validated approaches to psychotherapy.
Beck has emphasized the role of distorted information processing in the pathogenesis of depression.
Beck noted that clinically depressed individuals characteristically engage in a negative evaluation of themselves, their environment and the future.
They tend to be constantly preoccupied with these negative thoughts on an almost stereotypic fashion, irrespective of contrary evidence.
Through his research, Beck found the cognitions of depressed persons to be characterized by errors in logic that he called cognitive distortions.
Beck cognitive theory of depression
Depression commonly refers to a relatively transitory, negative mood experienced by human. The terms depression or depressed are used in both the ordinary, non-clinical sense and to refer specifically to pathology, especially when the mood of depression has reached a level of severity and/or duration that warrants a clinical diagnosis.
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
The most popular articles
-
Post-concussion trauma, often called post-concussion syndrome (PCS), refers to a set of symptoms that persist beyond the normal recovery tim...
-
The biological factors that might have some effect on depression include: genes, hormones, and brain chemicals. Depression often runs in fam...
-
Chief Complaint The chief complaint presented by depressed patients often pints immediately to the diagnosis of depression; although it some...
-
Bipolar disorder, formerly called manic-depressive illness or manic depression, causes extreme mood shifts ranging from mania to depression....
-
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is one of a group of behavioral disorders called disruptive behavior disorders (DBD). It most commonly e...