The ABC model

1. The ABC model is the psychological explanation of clinical depression, and it was put forward by Ellis in 1957.
2. Ellis argued that depression grows out of the way a person interprets what happens to them.
3. The same activating event can lead to very different outcomes, depending on the belief applied to it.
4. B, the belief, is the most important element, because it decides the consequence.
5. Ellis built a therapy on that claim, since a belief can be challenged and changed in a way that an event cannot.

Rational and irrational beliefs

1. A rational belief is realistic and flexible, such as treating a failed test as a setback that can be prepared for and retaken.
2. It fits the evidence, so it produces disappointment that the person is still able to act on.
3. An irrational belief is extreme, absolute and unrealistic, such as deciding that one failure proves the person fails at everything.
4. Ellis said irrational beliefs rest on rigid demands, the musts and shoulds a person imposes on themselves.
5. People prone to depression hold more irrational beliefs, and read events more negatively as a result.
6. Catastrophising means assuming the very worst outcome, so a poor mock becomes a certainty of failing the real exam.
7. Black-and-white thinking allows only total success or total failure, with no middle ground.
8. Personalising treats everything that goes wrong as the person's own fault, even when other people or plain chance were involved.

Activating events, beliefs and consequences

1. A is the activating event
   1. Something happens, such as failing a driving test or being left out of a group chat.
   2. The event usually arrives from outside the person's control.
2. B is the belief
   1. This is how the person interprets the event, either rationally or irrationally.
   2. The belief is the element the model treats as decisive, and it is the element therapy targets.
3. C is the consequence
   1. A rational belief produces a healthy consequence, such as disappointment that fades and a plan to retake.
   2. An irrational belief produces an unhealthy consequence, such as lasting low mood, withdrawal and loss of motivation.
   3. Those consequences are the ICD characteristics of depression.
4. Because B decides C, changing the belief changes the emotional outcome even when the event cannot be changed.

Criticisms and the free will debate

1. The ABC model runs into the free will and determinism question.
2. It leans towards free will, because it says a person can choose to challenge and change an irrational belief.
3. It is partly deterministic as well, since the activating event usually arrives from outside the person's control.
4. CBT shows in practice that thinking can be changed with skilled help rather than by willpower alone.
5. One criticism is that a focus on beliefs implies people are to blame for their own depression, which feeds the stigma around it.
6. The model ignores biology, so on its own it gives an incomplete account of depression.
7. It also struggles with depression that follows no obvious activating event, and with severe depression where thinking is too slowed for a person to challenge it unaided.

Turning this into marks

1. When A, B and C are asked for, give a separate example of each rather than one event described three times.
2. Name Ellis and state the irrational belief itself, because writing that a person thought negatively does not secure the knowledge mark.
3. Where a question asks for criticisms, use the free will and determinism debate and the risk of implying blame.
4. The mark most often lost is naming the activating event as the cause of the depression.