What is cognitive theory of depression?
A study done by Boury et al. (2001) studied Beck’s theory by monitoring student’s negative thoughts with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). They gave an overview of Beck’s ideas: “Individuals who are depressed misinterpret facts and experiences in a negative fashion, limiting their focus to the negative aspects of situations, thus feeling hopeless about the future. A direct relationship is postulated between negative thoughts and severity of depressive symptoms.” (Boury et al., 2001, p.14). They later found this idea to be true, despite their predictions that as time passes negative feelings would on average improve. “The result–that BDI-II scores significantly correlated with the number of automatic thoughts, number of core beliefs, and different types of core beliefs in both time periods–supports Beck’s assumptions that negative thought content characterizes depression.” (Boury et al., 2001, p.34) The effects of the negative cognitive thinking again proved to prolong depression a
