رابطه ي افكار مثبت و منفي اتوماتيك با افسردگي

Relations of positive and Negative Automatic Thoughts with Depression

Cognitive approach is one of the important approaches in explaining depression. According to Beck, depression starts and continues because of a non logical pessimistic attitude. These negative concepts and automatic repetitive negative thoughts are being considered as the central factors in depression. It has been shown that depressed individuals have significantly more negative thoughts compared to the normal ones. Furthermore, some authors have argued that the frequency of positive automatic thoughts is the most important factor in depression, whereas others maintain that the ratio of negative and positive thoughts is what matters the most. For the present study 200 students of the university of Tehran completed the Beck depression Inventory (BDI) and also the Automatic negative and positive thoughts Questionnaire(ATQ-NP). Bifactorial and correlation analyses suggest positive and negative automatic thoughts not only are related to each other but also provide independent information. There is a direct relationship between depression and negative thoughts whereas the relationship between depression and positive thoughts is invers. Furthermore, destruction of positive thoughts is a more striking characteristic of depression than the presence of negative thoughts. Destruction of positive thoughts is a more salient characteristic in depression compared with the absence of the negative thoughts. In other words, destruction of positive thoughts is related to the severity of depression not to depression itself.