The ABC Monitoring worksheet

The ABC Monitoring worksheet is for identifying beliefs that play a role in producing our emotional and behavioural reactions to situations. Triggering situations are recorded in the “A” column, and reactions in the “C” column. Thoughts and beliefs that produced those reactions are then recorded in the “B” column. It is useful to use this tool in conjunction with a list of common cognitive distortions so that unhelpful beliefs can be categorised according to relevant cognitive distortions.

The Serotonin Hypothesis of Depression

I am all for accurate information when it comes to managing your own health. Today I want to explore some misinformation about the causes and treatment of depression.

Serotonin chemical structure

Serotonin

You may have heard the idea, especially if you have ever been treated for depression, that depression is caused by a lack of a particular chemical, serotonin, in the brain. And you may have heard that antidepressants help lift depression by correcting this serotonin shortage.

The problem is, it isn’t true. Continue reading

Retail Therapy – what does shopping have to do with mood?

Clothes on mannequin in store window
I’ve written in a previous post about when “retail therapy” can become an addiction-like problem known as Compulsive Buying. This month, as a result of the efforts of my past academic supervisor and his colleague, I have been fortunate enough to see published some of the results of research on Compulsive Buying that I conducted for my DPsych thesis. The paper, Experimental analysis of the relationship between depressed mood and compulsive buying, will be in the June 2013 issue of the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry.

The paper reports results of two studies we conducted examining interaction between depressed mood and compulsive buying behaviour. Past research, largely using self-report questionnaires, has established that there is a relationship between depressed mood and compulsive buying. For example, a study by Faber and Christenson in 1996 found that 96% of people who buy compulsively thought that buying could alter their mood, in contrast to this belief being held among only 25% of the general population.

We wanted to see what we could find out about the relationship between mood and compulsive buying by using an experiment involving buying-related conditions, instead of simply asking people questions about their buying beliefs and behaviour.
Continue reading