Depression is a disease that affects our minds, but in most cases it arises from a set of external events and is also maintained using certain patterns of behavior that we use in our lives, so while the cognitive part is important, this article will focus on the main behavioral therapies and the logic of their functioning.
It may seem logical for a depressed person to seek a more “philosophical and profound” explanation for this emotional uprooting in everything he does and lives. Explanations that refer to complex and intrapsiquical aspects become extremely seductive, as do the sadness that nourishes your entire body. Existence.
- Emotion-laden literary accounts seem to give a more attractive and poetic form to their suffering.
- Although it is not solved or mitigated in this way.
- Concrete and simpler explanations of his pain seem very cold and sharp.
“It’s amazing how these people who strongly oppose behavioral manipulation are the same people who make the most vigorous efforts to manipulate minds. “? Frederic Burrhus Skinner?
Psychologists have a professional and academic obligation to publicize such purely behavioral treatments, will not give us a series of lectures or attract more clients, but it is important that people know the treatment options available to them.
Psychology is therapeutic hope for millions of people, so it’s worth knowing how depression is explained by driving and choosing a psychologist specialized in this area to help clearly and concisely implement the solution our problems require. represents the most radical revolution in the home of the human psyche, its theoretical basis is based on the fact that a stimulus is always followed by a response, which is the result of the interaction between the receiving organism of the stimulus and the environment.
It may be unnecessary and unnecessary to explain the behavioral approach of this article to the person reading these lines, however, here we will give a general idea of how behaviorism understands depression.
What is the most characteristic symptom of depression?Sadness would certainly be the most quickly associated symptom of depression and this idea is not entirely false, but it needs to be explained later. From this perspective, conductism tells us that, in general, sadness is the result of everything we experience.
Conductism does not exclude that there are differences between individuals, both cognitively and biologically, in the face of difficulties, but often these differences also originate from environmental factors, otherwise treatment should not be performed by a psychologist, but by another health care professional. that explores organic causes.
Sometimes it is almost impossible to believe that the most serious psychological disorders can be caused by an indefinite network of stimuli and associated responses, but it is. Today’s interpretations of the stimuli we are experiencing are also determined by the reaction we have. had had before the same circumstances.
Therefore, a network of catastrophic events with catastrophic interpretations can condition a person’s life forever. Conductism seeks to identify this network of catastrophic associations in an attempt to show a different behavioral alternative to alleviate all this suffering that has become a vicious circle. know the negative behavior to try to change it.
Let’s give an example: let’s say that a child wants to eat the packet of chocolate chip cookies that he has in front of his eyes, runs to look for him, but is prevented by the action of an adult, in the face of the impossibility of obtaining this pleasure, the child can react with a tantrum. If the adult, moved by his tears, leaves, will strengthen his attitude.
This is called a “negative reinforcement trap” because it prevents the discomfort of anger in the short term, but this behavior is reinforced and is much more likely to appear in the future. This will lead to more complex future behaviors, such as the inability to tolerate frustrations or an immediate pursuit of pleasure with lack of impulse control.
Given everything we’ve said before, we’ll see which theories are most relevant within behaviorism.
Skinner once said that mood disorders are due to reduced behavioral frequency. Here we will explain the three most representative theories of behavior that have tried to enrich this idea:
This theory suggests that mood disorder is explained by the lower frequency of positively enhanced behaviors used to control the environment in which the person lives, the origin of which is not only in the fact that they lose boosters, but in avoidance behaviors that maintain a strong pattern of behavioral inhibition.
This theory explains that boosters still exist in the person’s environment, but are no longer effective; either because of endogenous changes or because the chain of behavior that underpinned them has lost its effectiveness.
Imagine a child who has lost the feeling of taste buds due to illness, or a child who rejects food because it is no longer administered by his caregiver, this loss of effectiveness of the boosters can lead to a lack of interest in the environment around them.
In this theory we say that what is happening in the individual’s life is a lack of positive reinforcement over a certain behavior. There are several reasons why positive boosters are not properly associated with appropriate behavior.
For example, you may find yourself in an environment that doesn’t provide you with enough reinforcement, where there’s a lack of social skills to acquire the necessary reinforcements, or a social anxiety that prevents you from enjoying it, it also explains how depression on the one hand would be reinforced by social assistance and, on the other, by social isolation.
We have seen here some approaches proposed by conductism for depression, but these proposals have now been enriched with new knowledge and more purely cognitive elements have been added, such as Rehm’s theory of self-control and Lewinsohn’s theory of self-concentration.
Rehm’s theory of self-control incorporates elements of Beck, Lewinsohn and Seligman’s theories and is considered a model of diathesis-stress (a theoretical model that suggests that certain specific characteristics make individuals more prone to psychopathologies after the start of stressful environmental events), and includes depression as a loss of association between external boosters and control of their own behavior.
Lewinsohn’s theory of self-focus emphasizes environmental factors as a cause of depression, but emphasizes that it is essential that people have a better perception of their own disability, which would create even more discomfort in their lives.
Certainly, behavioral and cognitive behavioral models give us a framework to explain mood disorder so satisfying that the challenge today for psychology professionals is to make them known with the same vehemence with which certain theories are disseminated, without any scientific sustenance.