Discuss Two Explanations Of Depression

There are a number of explanations for the causes of depression. This essay will focus on the cognitive and the behavioural explanations, look at research to support each theory and then evaluate them both based on this. Depression is a mood disorder, it is characterised by low mood and many other symptoms that will vary from one person to the next. The signs of depression are; sadness and feeling weepy, lethargy and a loss of interest in things you used to enjoy, wanting to hide away from people, constant tiredness and problems sleeping, loss of appetite or eating to excess for the comfort you feel when doing it, stress and frustration, irritability and aggression, feelings of not being able to cope and asking yourself what the point of living is (Anon., 2014). There are two types of treatments for depression, medication and talking treatments. Often a combination of the two will be used to effectively treat somebody. Cognitive behavioural theorists put forward that depression is the result of maladaptive, faulty or irrational …show more content…
Banduras suggested that the depressed person’s concept of ones-self is different to that of a non-depressed person. A depressed person will have the tendency to blame themselves for any negative events that occur in their lives but any positives will be attributed to external forces, he also believed that a depressed person did not believe that they were capable of influencing their own personal situation. As a result, depressed people have flawed judgmental process and tended to set any goals too high clearly being unable to meet them. This leads to the whole process being repeated again and again ultimately leading to depression (Nemade, et al.,