Affect, Cognition, and Change [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONE Negative Thinking and Depression A young woman is walking her dog. It is a beautiful September morning. It is her birthday. She is very aware of her thoughts: "What a flop my life has been all these years—another rotten year gone and lots more to go— how full of failures and miseries my life has been." She is depressed. Is this the reason she thinks in this gloomy pessimistic way, or has her life really been so bad? Does thinking this way contribute to keeping her depressed? If we were to change the way she thinks would this change the way she feels? If we were to change the way she feels wotdd this change the way she thinks? Can we, by changing the way she thinks and feels, help reduce the chances that she will continue to be depressed, both now and in the future? These questions provided the stimulus to the enquiry of which this book is a part. The answers are likely to be of more than theoretical interest. Cogrutive models of depression (Beck, 1976) suggest that negative pessimistic thinking is an important factor maintaining depression. Cognitive therapy, a form of psychological treatment based on these ideas, is designed to teach patients to change the way they think and feel. This psychological therapy has already been shown to be at least as effective as tricyclic antidepressant medication in the treatment of outpatients with major depressive disorder. There is also encouraging evidence that cognitive therapy is more effective than pharmacotherapy in preventing future relapse, once initial treatment has been discontinued (Hollon, Shelton, & Loosen, 1991; Williams, 1992). Cognitive therapy is currently