Ashley's Psychodynamic Model

Ashley is a twenty one-year-old student at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. She grew up in a small town with her younger brother and older sister, raised by her mom for the most part. Her dad was around sometimes but not a stable support in her life. When Ashley went off to college, her mood started going down gradually and then she fell into a deep depression around the age of twenty. She went to the Doctor after awhile of putting up with the symptoms and was diagnosed with depression, which is “a low, sad state marked by significant levels of sadness, lack of energy, low self-worth, guilt, or related symptoms” (Comer, 2014, pg. 172). There are six types of theoretical models and each would explain why depression occurs in people in a different way. The psychodynamic explanation focuses on loss and dependence. A psychodynamic theorist would say that part of the reason Ashley developed …show more content…
A behaviorist would say that Ashley’s depression developed because the amount of rewards she is receiving now is lower than it was and the amount of punishments she faces has gone up. During Ashley’s first two years of college she was a cheerleader and received a lot of attention. She would get complimented about how well she performed as well as how pretty she was. Ashley’s grades started going down a little bit too because she was getting easily distracted. She was used to getting good grades and getting attention for being a popular cheerleader and now she isn’t getting those positive rewards so it has contributed to her spiral into depression. Another behaviorist view of Ashley’s depression is that she has picked up on her friends’ behaviors because they have been negative quite often and complain about just about everything. Ashley has started to imitate their behavior without really noticing it. A behaviorist would say that Ashley has learned this behavior and that it can be unlearned (Nemade, Reiss,