Cognitive Therapy for Chronic and Persistent Depression - Essay Example

Cognitive Therapy for Chronic and Persistent Depression Q1. Can an authority figure influence human behaviour? Find a recent journal article to compare with and discuss. Human behaviour is may be influenced by people. It is a common finding that deliberate persuasion can cause changes in human behaviour. Chadha and Misra (2006) in their naturalistic study on behaviour of Indian Children examined the prosocial reasoning and behaviour of children of ages 5 to 14 years. In the Indian context, despite there are several subcultures, the socialisation emphasises relationship. This also indicates that an individual actually best exists embedded within a group. It was found in that study that reasoning for prosocial activities in case of the children and shaping of the related behaviour was guided by naturalistic contexts of authority/punishment orientation, concerns for perceived needs of others, pragmatism, orientation to mutual gains, and orientation to honouring requests from teachers and social workers who were viewed as authority figures. Although it may appear that conformity to such behaviours are results of higher order reasoning or references to internalised norms and values, there were no obvious influences of such factors. With time, these behaviours were expressed when warranted. The authority and punishment orientation was the most frequently cited reason for the instances of prosocial behaviour in this research (Chadha and Misra, 2006). Thus at least this study indicates that behaviours can be modified through authority orientation. By authority figure, this study indicates the influence of teachers or social workers. The authors state that "Though no child stated as much, but it could well be that this made these children very conscious of not doing anything that could annoy the staff." Authority orientation, demands of authorities, and fear of punishment were common factors in children's conformity and compliance to certain behaviour. 2. Cognitive approach has been used in the treatment of depression. Choose an alternative therapeutic approach to the treatment of depression and discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of the approach you have selected as opposed to Cognitive Therapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for mood disorders, specifically depression is based on the cognitive theory of mood disorders. This uses a combination of techniques involving behavioural and cognitive components to help the individual cope with the symptoms of depression in order to enable him to find better ways to encounter life situations. In this way, it attempts to alter the patterns of thinking, responses, and beliefs. This would also alter the course of depression since these responses are presumed to underlie the maintenance of depression (Moore and Garland, 2003). Depression classically comprises of affective, cognitive, behavioral, and somatic elements. In parallel with the emphasis on compensatory strategies in cognitive accounts, recent behavioral conceptualizations of depression have highlighted the importance of avoidant behaviors in depression, particularly within the behavioral activation (BA) approach. BA was initially documented to be developed as part of a component analysis of the active components of CBT, which only reflected a behavioural component of CBT. Subsequently, BA was found to be equally effective as BA plus thought challenging. Central to the BA conceptualization of depression is the concept of secondary avoidant behaviours in response to the symptoms of depression produced by negative events. BA proposes that unhelpful secondary coping responses lead to the maintenance of depression. Typically, unhelpful secondary coping responses involve attempts to escape from an aversive environment or to avoid aversive situations or emotional states leading to avoidant behaviour. While this is compensatory and coping strategy leading to being passive, withdrawal, rumination, complaining, or avoiding new activities. Because these behaviors reduce exposure to aversive situations they are negatively reinforced and become more prevalent, reducing the frequency and narrowing the range of other behaviours, which in turn reduces contact with positive reinforcers and increases the risk for depression. Therefore BA may help to prevent these behaviours leading to positive outcomes in the management of depression (Hopko et al., 2003). 3. Some of the previous research associated gender with children’s development (eg., difference between girls and boys as they grow). What does more contemporary research suggest? Find a recent journal article investigating the issues of children and gender, then discuss. There are indeed differences in child psychological differences in development. It is currently being thought that biology and biologically driven psychological characteristics actually evolve to ensure successful reproduction. As indicated in Thompson et al (2003) discourse developmental differences based on genders are closely related to both atypical and typical brain development. It has now been known that some of the same hormones and chemical signaling system closely related to fertility and genders also regulate the childhood neuropsychological development. Although mechanisms are still matters of speculation, the gender differences in child development in relation to emotional expression, play, language, relationships, self-regulation, and cognitive acumen have been well established. At the current time, research is examining the gender differences in developmental psychology through the differences in brain function. This concept has thrown different lights into the topic of developmental disability in that hormonal and developmental brain differences between genders may hold good in the etiological mechanisms of developmental disability. There is now known that there is difference in background neural substrate between males and females. It has also been noted that these powerful underlying differences in brain development also impact on differences in behavioural domains. It has been established that play and other gender specific behaviours can be correlated with prenatal hormone exposure. Although social experiences may contribute to play behaviours across genders, the differences have been ascribed partially to biology. For example, the males have better arithmetic reasoning which comes from spatial cognition and computational fluency which may be reflected in male ability to generate spatial representation or diagrams. These in turn have been suggested to be due to differential effects of sex hormones on the developing brain (Thompson et al 2003). 4. Does emotional expression change as people age? Find a recent journal article and discuss this issue. Classically with aging, it has been stated repeatedly that there is a decline in sensory and cognitive integrity. There is demonstrable reduction in memory function and executive planning abilities with advancement of age. However, as far as emotional expressions are concerned, emotional wellbeing increases with aging. Williams et al. (2006) reports easing of emotional intensity, reduction in trait neuroticism, and better emotional stability with progressive aging. This would provide the so called maturity to the emotional expressions. This study also reports that older adults also demonstrate a shift in the ratio of positive to negative emotions with a reduction in the experience, memory, and recognition of negative emotion, all of which in the contrary increases for positive emotions. Many theories have been proposed to explain these changes with progressive aging. The authors site a number of literatures to provide the reader a focused view of the issue in the perspective of current knowledge. While less stress in daily life and activities has been implicated, these selective changes on positive and negative emotions and their expressions may be related to age-related atrophy of the brain. There is possibility that age related atrophy may involve the processing pathways for both positive and negative emotions. However, the emotional recognition and stability and their improvement with age may be closely associated with a shift in motivational priorities over age which emanate from knowledge acquisition in the pursuit of emotional satisfaction, which social research attributes to increasing awareness about the limited life span. The other factors that may cause these changes are abilities to have emotional stability and to regulate social behaviour. Age-related maturity and increased personal adjustment also contribute to these emotional expressions (Williams et al. 2006). References Chadha, N. and Misra, G., (2006). Prosocial Reasoning and Behaviour among Indian Children: A Naturalistic Study. Psychology Developing Societies; 18; 167 Hopko, D. R., Lejuez, C. W., Ruggiero, K. J., and Eifert, G. H. (2003). Contemporary behavioral activation treatments for depression: procedures, principles, and progress. Clinical Psychology Review, 23, 699-717. Moore, R. G. and Garland, A. (2003). Cognitive therapy for chronic and persistent depression. Chichester: Wiley. Thompson, T., Caruso, M., and Ellerbeck, K., (2003). Sex Matters in Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities; 7: 345 - 362. Williams, LM., Brown, KJ., Palmer, D., Liddell, BJ., Kemp, AH., Olivieri, G., Peduto, A., and Gordon, E., (2006). The Mellow Years?: Neural Basis of Improving Emotional Stability over Age. J. Neurosci.; 26: 6422 - 6430. Read More