Burns nicely summarizes Beck's approach (which he espouses) as follows: "The first principle of cognitive therapy is that all your moods are created by your `cognitions'" (1980, p. 11). Well said (though a bit over-stated; anger at being hit by a stray snowball is something other than cognitive). Self- comparisons Analysis makes this proposition more specific: Moods are caused by a particular type of cognition, self- comparisons, in conjunction with such general attitudes as (for example, in the case of depression) feeling helpless.

Burns says the "The second principle is that when you are feeling depressed, your thoughts are dominated by a pervasive negativity". (p. 12). Self-Comparisons Analysis also makes this proposition more specific: it replaces "negativity" with negative self-comparisons, in conjunction with feeling helpless.

According to Burns, "The third principle is ...that the negative thoughts ...nearly always contain gross distortions" (p. 12, itals. in original). Below I argue at some length that depressed thinking is not always best characterized as distorted.

Another difference between Beck's and my point of view is that he makes the concept of loss central to his theory of depression. It is true, as he says, that "many life situations can be interpreted as a loss" (1976, p. 58), and that loss and negative self-comparisons often can be logically translated one into the other without too much conceptual strain. But many sadness-causing situations must be bent and massaged in order to be interpreted as losses; consider, for example, the tennis player who again and again seeks matches with better players and then is pained at the outcome. It seems to me that most situations can be interpreted more naturally and more fruitfully as negative self-comparisons. Furthermore, this concept points more clearly to a variety of ways that one's thinking can change to overcome depression than does the more limited concept of loss.

It also is relevant that the concept of comparison is fundamental in perception and in the production of new thoughts. It therefore is more likely to link up logically with other branches of theory (see discussion below of decision-making theory) than is a less basic concept. Hence this more basic concept would seem preferable on the grounds of potential fruitfulness.

Relationship of Self-Comparison Analysis To Other Theory

Albert Ellis's Rational-Emotive Therapy

Ellis operates primarily upon the benchmark state, urging that the depressive not consider goals and "ought" states as strongly binding "must"s. He teaches people not to "musturbate" - - that is, to free oneself of unnecessary must's and ought's. Again this is fine advice which helps a depressive adjust his/her benchmark state, and the person's relationship to it, in such fashion that one makes fewer and less-painful negative self- comparisons. Coming to recognize that I did not have to accept the particular goals and standards that I had previously accepted was the first of the key events in my own victory over depression. But as with Beck's (and below, Seligman's) therapeutic advice, Ellis's focuses on only one aspect of the depression structure. As a system, therefore, his doctrine therefore restricts the options available to the therapist and patient, omitting some other avenues which may be just what a particular person needs.

Interpersonal Therapy

Klerman, Weissman, et. al. focus on the neg-comps that flow from interactions between the depressive and others as a result of conflict and criticism. There can be no doubt that bad relationships with other people damage a person's actual inter- personal situation and and exacerbate other difficulties in the person's life. And it therefore is undeniable that teaching a person better ways of relating to others will improve a person's real situation and therefore the person's state of mind. But the fact that people living alone often suffer depression makes clear that not all depression flows from inter-personal relationships, and therefore to focus only on inter-personal relationships to the exclusion of other cognitive and behavioral elements is too limited.

Learned Helplessness

Seligman focuses on ways to reduce the helplessness that almost all depression sufferers report, an element which combines with neg-comps to produce sadness. And he expresses what other writers say less explicitly about their own core ideas, that the theoretical element he concentrates on is the main issue in depression. Talking about the many kinds of depression classified by another writer, he says: "I will suggest that, at the core, there is something unitary that all these depressions share" (p. 78).

I agree that the sense of helplessness is centrally involved in all depressions. But Seligman leaves the impression that helplessness is the only invariable element, which I believe is not the case; negative self-comparisons are at least as omni- present. His therapeutic focus on reducing the sense of helplessness points him away from adaptations of other parts of the system. (This may follow from his experimental work with animals, which do not have the capacity to make such adjustments in perceptions, judgments, goals, values, and so on, which are central to human depression and which people can and do alter. That is, people disturb themselves, as Ellis puts it, whereas animals do not.)

Self-comparisons Analysis and the procedure it implies include learning not to feel helpless. But this approach focuses on the helpless attitude in conjunction with the neg-comps that are the direct cause of the sadness of depression, rather than only on the helpless attitude, as Seligman does. Again, Self- comparisons Analysis reconciles and integrates another important element of depression into an over-arching theory.