rience psychotic symptoms, such as delusions (false beliefs) and hallucinations (false sensory perceptions). Psychotic symptoms indicate an especially severe illness. By comparing to other depressed people, those with psychotic symptoms have longer hospital stays, and after leaving, they are more likely to be moody and unhappy. They are also more likely to commit suicide. COGNITIVE MODEL OF DEPRESSIONSome depressions seem to come unexpected, even when things are going well. Others seem to have an obvious cause: a marital conflict, financial difficulty, or some personal failure. Yet many people with these problems do not become deeply depressed. Most psychologists believe depression results from an interaction between stressful life events and persons psychological vulnerabilities.Cognitive theories of depression emphasize the role of irrational thought processes. American psychiatrist Aaron Beck proposed that depressed people tend to view themselves, their environment, and the future in a negative light because of errors in thinking. These errors include focusing on the negative aspects of any situation, misinterpreting facts in negative ways, and blaming themselves for any misfortune. In Becks view, people learn these negative ways of looking at the world during early childhood. To Beck, depressed persons acquire this view through loss of a loved one, the social rejection of their friends, the abusive rearing style of their parents, and the defeating criticisms of their teachers. This negative thinking makes situations much worse than they really are and increases the risk of depression, especially in stressful situations. Thus, such persons expect frequent fails, often blame themselves about these fails and feel worthless.In support of this cognitive view, people with "depressive" personality traits appear to be more vulnerable than others to actual depression. Examples of depressive personality traits include gloominess, pessimism,...
