Thursday, April 8, 2010

Psychology

Choose one of three theories of depression and relate it to the theory of learned helplessness.

The environmental theory of depression states that people become depressed because of their surroundings and events. This means that the problems around these people, such as poverty, can make them feel stress, or sadness, and therefore make them depressed. Traumatic events such as the death of someone, or abuse by someone, can also lead to these feelings.
Learned Helplessness is caused because someone is used to hearing the same negative things about themselves that they have learned to act helplessly against it. For example, if someone is so used to hearing that he or she is a bad student, and that is why they never get good grades, they will be mentalized to believe this is true, instead of believing that it is the lack of effort that has caused these grades. People who have learned to act helpessly, have just accepted things as they are, and they believe that they will always be the same way because that is just the way it is. Learned Helplessness can be one of the factors that can lead to depression.
We can relate the environmental theory of depression, to learned helplessness, because sometimes you can become to act helplessly when it comes to your surroundings, or a specific and traumatic event. For example, a woman cam have an abusive husband, and he hits her and abuses her most of the time. At first, this woman will try to change the way her husband treats her, but as time goes on and she recieves no help from neither family members or friends, and she simply cannot do it herself, she will just accept things the way they are. She will no longer try to change the situation, because she has learned to act helplessly and mentalize herself that she is not able to do it.


Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Cognitive Theory of Depression

Cognitive theories of depression is "cognitive" because they address mental events such as thinking and feeling. Cognitive theory suggests that depression results from maladaptive, faulty, or irrational cognitions taking the form of distorted thoughts and judgements. Depressive cognitions can be learned observationally as is the case when children in a dysfunctional family watch their parents fail to successfully cope with stressful experiences or traumatic events.
According to cognitive behavioral theory, depressed people think differently than non-depressed people, and it is the difference in thinking that causes them to become depressed. For example, depressed people tend to view themselves, their environment, and the future in a negative way. As a result, depressed people tend to think negatively and blame themselves for any misfortune that occurs.

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=13006&cn=5

Environmental Theory of Depression

The environment has a lot of influence if you are depressed. Environmental factors are also called emotional factors, and can result from stressful emotional situations, such as a lack of loving parents or the death of a parent during childhood. To make it even more complicated, depression can also occur as a result of a combination of these factors mentioned.
If you inherited vulnerability to depression from one of your parents, your brain may react to a stressful event in a way that causes you to get depressed. Certain environmental situations, such as stress or breakup of important attachments, also may precipitate depression, especially in weak or vulnerable people.













http://www.healthyplace.com/depression/main/causes-of-depression/menu-id-943/

Monday, March 22, 2010

Biological Theory of Depression

Medical Research has contributed alot to our knowledge about depression, however scientists do not know what is the exact cause of a depressive illness. Most probably there is no factor that gives this illness, but doctors are trying to put this puzzle together. Doctors believed that the causes of depression were thoughts or emotions troubling a person, but research has concluded that three main factors that cause depression are: biological, genetic, and environmental.
People suffering from depression have an imbalance of neurotransmitters, which are natural substances that allow brain cells to communicate with one another. Two transmitters implicated in depression are serotonin and norepinephrine. Other chemicals may be altered in depressed people, such as cortisol, which is a hormone that the body produces in response to stress, anger, or fear. Cortisol never lowers in depressed people, therefore they always feel these emotions.http://www.healthyplace.com/depression/main/causes-of-depression/menu-id-943/