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Discuss the Cognitive Approach to Explain Psychological Abnormality.

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Discuss the cognitive approach to explain psychological abnormality.
The cognitive approach focuses on the internal mental processes. In relation to metal disorders, the way a person thinks about events and experiences are assumed to go some way toward being the cause of the disorder; often because these thoughts may be irrational and distorted when it comes to someone with an underlying mental disorder. Beck, for example, in 1987 related ‘negative assumptions’ to depression.
Beck (1987): Triad of negative assumptions
• Negative view of self. ‘I am a worthless person.’
• Negative view of circumstance: ‘Everything is bleak and I cannot cope with what people expect of me.’
• Negative view of the future: ‘Things can only get worse and there is nothing I can do to change them.’
Eating disorders suggest that irrational negative thinking is a cause of mental disorders as people will this illness have the belief that being thin will lead to happiness and attractiveness, which therefore reinforces the idea that they are doing the right thing. Because of this type of behaviour a person is unable to behave adaptively.
Therapies associated with this approach aim to challenge the negative thoughts, the cognitive approach is in some ways very similar to the behavioural approach, this is because the cognitive approach is a branch of the behavioural approach, it arose out of disappointment of behavioural therapies and its limitations. The difference between behavioural and cognitive therapy is that whereas behavioural therapy only tackles changing the faulty behaviour, and not the cause of illness, cognitive therapy tackles the behaviour change as well as the underlying cause, the

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