Am J Psychiatry 135:5, Ma 1978 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY Maladaptive Cognitive Structures in Depression

According to tile cognitive t’iet’, the individual’s negative tind distorted thinking is tile basic psychologi(’th ’ problem in the depressive syndrome. The distorted cognitions are supported h ’ maladaptive cognitive schemata, i’hicii involve immature ‘either-or ’ ‘ rules of’conduct or inflexible and unattainable self-expectations. These schemata are probably acquired earls ’ in development and, if uncritically carried into adulthood, serve to predispose the individual to depression. Since these schemata are long-term identifiable psychological patterns that influence attitude and behavioral responses, they mna’ constitute a cognitive dimension of tile depression-prone individual’s personality. Tile authors discuss tile treatment implications of the cognitive approach to depression. DEPRESSION (or melancholia) has been recognized for thousands of years. The Book of Job. for example. il-lustrates the profound mood alteration, loss of inter-est, social withdrawal, self-deprecation. self-blame, and sleep disturbance that characterize the depres-sions. A 3.900-year-old Egyptian manuscript provides a distressingly accurate picture of the sufferer’s pessi-mism, his loss of faith in others, his inability to carry out the everyday tasks of life, and his serious consid-eration of suicide (1). Such historical descriptions ar