Seligman's Explanations Of Depression

Depression is known as ‘common cold’ of psychiatry because of its recurrence (Selignman, 1973). Depression is a disorder which is outined by disturbances in mood. Depression has a lot of symptoms such as loss of appetite, feelings of sadness, insomnia, loss of drive, loss of self confidence, feelings of hopelesssness, suicidal thoughts, and many more (Psychology 4A.com). Psychodynamically Freud was the first person to offer possible explanations of depression. He was also the first person to notice the resemblance in feelings of individuals suffering from depression. According to him, the loss could have been actual or symbolic. In his view, any loss that we have in our life will cause us to relive the childhood experiences of loss. In extreme cases, regression to childhood may occur. Aggression is also involved.
Seligman observed the same thing in humans. According to his research he saw that humans with depression made little or no attempt to resolve their problems. But Seligman’s theory was not able to explain the self blame or blaming others characteristic of depression. Later he came to realise the importance of cognitions and how a depressed person views negative events in a pessimistic way. Seligman is seen as the link between the behaviourist and cognitive explanations. Abramson et al’s theory is a logical development of learned helplessness theory. According to this theory the depressed patient faced an experience of failure, traits the failure in a way according to 3 variables. The three variables are internal or external, stable or unstable and gobal or specific. In internal person blames themselves, external person blames others. With stable person thinks things will stay as it is whereas in unstable person belives things will improve. In global failure applies in all other situations and in specfic failure applies only to this