Introducing GLEO: SandyG ’s Positive Tetrad

Most of you would be familiar with Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Triad also known as the Negative Triad. To recap, a depressed person is characterized by negative views about the self, negative views about the world and negative views about the future. Guilt, shame, worthlessness, not accepting the self are all aspects of negative views about the self, which I conveniently relabel as self-loathing. It can even be conceived that these self concepts are closer to a neurotic belief system. Similarly, being pessimistic and having a sense of hopelessness, is what can be thought of as having negative views about the future. Learned helplessness, an explanatory model of depression, is more aligned with this aspect. That leaves us with negative views about the world. Items that measure it include “No one values me” or “People ignore me all the time”; items that talk more about negative views about other people rather than world at large. Also we know that depression is characterized by rumination or repetitive negative brooding over the past. So my humble submission is that its better to break this negative views about the world into two components: one about negative views about other people and the other about negative views about the past/ present. So, Cynicism or cynical hostility, which is characterized by cynicism, distrust, resentment, and suspicion, would be what is dysfunctional in depression as far as negative views about others is...
Source: The Mouse Trap - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: depression positive psychology aaron beck Source Type: podcasts