Psychology Commons^™

Comparing Different Sequential Mediational Interpretations Of Beck’S Depression Model In Adolescents., Patrick Pössel

Faculty Scholarship

Depression is a developmental phenomenon with significantly increasing rates during adolescence. As Beck’s cognitive model of depression has been commonly accepted to explain the development and maintenance of depression, it is crucial to understand how and when cognitive vulnerabilities predicted in this model begin to interact. Three sequential interpretations of this model were compared. The causal mediational interpretation identifies dysfunctional attitudes as most distal to depressive symptoms, followed by cognitive errors, cognitive triad, and negative automatic thoughts, with each construct successively more proximal to depressive symptoms. In the symptom model the causal chain is reversed, with depressive symptoms as the …