Appendix (4): Good Mood: The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression

Good Mood

Home
About Julian Simon
Table of Contents
Ways to Overcome Depression
Conquering Depression, Enjoying Life
Download Chapter
Buy the Book

back to
depression community

send this page to a friend

Good Mood: The New Psychology
of Overcoming Depression

Relationship of Self-Comparisons Analysis To Other Theory

Self-Comparisons Analysis Compared To Other Cognitive Therapy on "Rationality"

cont.

A key difference between Self-comparisons Analysis and both Beck's and Ellis's cognitive therapy is their belief that depression is always the result of "disabled or "irrational" thinking. Self-comparisons Analysis differs from Beck and Ellis in not considering depressive thinking as irrational by definition.

In my view, everyone's thinking is bent and twisted, especially in matters that affect one personally. Everyone's perception is biased in various ways; it is never unbiased, not just in psychologically-charged issues but in all kinds of cognitive thinking and judgments in business, science, politics, and everyday life. The question is not who sees the matter "correctly" and who does not, but in what fashion the thinking of each person is inclined away from what might be a "true" view.

Let's agree that unsound thinking either causes or is involved in many cases of depression, and improving one's thinking can therefore help fight against depression in those cases. But as I see it, this is not an appropriate or "rational" treatment for all cases of depression.

Underlying cognitive therapy is the value (belief) that it is silly and childish and irrational to be depressed, that depression is proof-positive that one is not thinking rationally.

There are some people who are depressed yet who are not at all irrational in their thinking--at least not in the sense that Ellis and Harper use that term. Consider the following example of Ellis's, with special attention to the last sentence:

...the case of a person who, as a child, is contin- ually criticized by his parents, who consequently feels himself loathsome and inadequate, who refuses to take chances at trying and possibly failing at difficult tasks, and who comes to hate himself more because he knows that he is evasive and cowardly. Such a person, during his childhood, would of course be seriously neurotic. But how would it be possible for him to sustain his neuro- sis if he began to think later in life, in a truly logical manner?

For if this person does begin to be consistently rational, he will quickly stop being over concerned about what others think of him and will begin to care primarily about what he wants to do in life and what he thinks of himself. Consequently, he will stop avoiding diffi- cult tasks and, instead of blaming himself for making mistakes, he will say to himself something like: 'Now this is not the right way to do things; let me stop and figure out a better way.' Or: 'There's no doubt that I made a mistake this time; now let me see how I can benefit from making it, so that my next performance will be improved.'

This person, if he is thinking straight in the present, will not blame his defeats on external events, but will realize that he himself is causing them by his inadequate or incompetent behavior. He will not believe that it is easier to avoid than to face difficult life problems, but will see that the so-called easy way is invariably the harder and more idiotic procedure. He will not think that he needs someone greater or stronger than himself on whom to rely, but will independently buckle down to hard tasks without outside help. He will not feel, because he once defeated himself by avoiding doing things the hard way, that he must always continue to act in this self-defeating manner.

How, with this kind of logical thinking, could an originally disturbed person possibly maintain and con- tinually revivify his neurosis? He just couldn't. (Ellis, l962?, pp. 91-92.)

If the person is, say, a biologist searching for an advance in treating cancer which he has not been able to find, the cause of the "defeats" is not "inadequate or incompetent behavior," to use Ellis' terms. This is not a person who "systematically misconstrues his experiences," as Beck sees it. (l977, p. 264.) Hence, no amount of "straightening out the person's thinking" by itself is the answer. Rather, the person must decide either (a) to accept such defeats if they do occur, and change the denominator (of expected cons or hopes) or the main dimension of comparison (from success-failure to courage or lack of it), or else (b) change his work subject.

advertisement

By assuming that the cognitions responsible for depression always can be shown to be logically or empirically incorrect, "distorted thinking" in Beck's terms, "irrational thinking" in Ellis', they run the risk of forcing an analysis that is appropriate for some people onto others for whom it is not appropriate, and thereby not doing well both by the cognitive point of view and some clients, too.

Ellis and Beck view the role of the therapist as helping the patient learn to think in "more rational" or "less distorted" ways. In my view, sometimes the proper role for the therapist is more like that of a sports physician or trainer in those cases where the athlete desperately wishes to continue playing. The appropriate procedure then is: a) Determine the cause of the pain. b) Decide how the pain can be mitigated, and mitigate it if possible. c) If mitigating the pain requires cessation of play, then advise the patient that there is a trade-off between playing and avoiding pain. This is like the choice that a depressed person must make between continuing to work toward a valued goal where there has been little or no success so far, and only small hope of future success, as is sometimes the case with a scientist trying to persuade the world of a new theory. The therapist may offer some devices that will at least lessen the pain while playing, however, and this can be of value. It is important that the choice to play be respected and not just treated as irrational or perverse; doing the latter can worsen the person's depression.

Self-comparisons Analysis also differs in viewing sadness as an effect of negative self-comparisons plus a sense of helplessness rather than simply loss, as does Beck; and there is a great deal of difference between the implications of these two concepts. Still another difference is the systematic step-by- step procedure suggested by the Self-comparisons Analysis, as described in earlier chapters, against which may be compared the following systematic description of Beck's procedures - (actually a description of Beck's cognitive therapy for a patient suffering from anxiety rather than depression):

The formulation of the progress of this patient can now be fitted into the therapeutic model: (1) self- observations that led directly to the ideation preceding the anxiety; (2) establishing the relation between the thoughts and anxiety attack: (3) learning to regard thoughts as hypotheses rather than facts; (4) testing the hypotheses: (5) piecing together the assumptions that underlay and generated these hypotheses; (6) demonstrating that these rules composing her belief system were incorrect. (Beck, l977, p. 261.)

top | continued | send page to friend

HealthyPlace.com Depression Center Links
home ~ site map

HealthyPlace.com Homepage
Chat ~ Forums ~ Communities
HealthyPlace.com Films ~ HealthyPlace.com Radio ~ News
Site Map ~ Web Tour ~ Advertise ~ Email Us
send this page to a friend

We subscribe to the HONcode principles of the Health On the Net Foundation.