Beck et al. (1979) · Depression
Beck et al. (1979)
Early Experiences
Early experiences that shape beliefs about the self — loss, rejection, harsh or conditional criticism, neglect, or unfavourable comparison, often in childhood.
Core Beliefs / Schemas
Negative core beliefs (schemas) laid down by those experiences — e.g. 'I'm unlovable', 'I'm worthless', 'I'm helpless / inadequate'. They can stay latent until something activates them.
Dysfunctional Assumptions & Rules
Dysfunctional assumptions and rules developed to live with the core belief — 'if I succeed at everything, I'm OK', 'unless everyone likes me, I'm worthless', 'I must not show weakness'.
Critical Incident
A critical incident that breaks an assumption, or echoes the original experience — a loss, failure, rejection or setback — activating the dormant core belief.
Negative Automatic Thoughts (Cognitive Triad)
Negative automatic thoughts, patterned by Beck's cognitive triad — a negative view of the self ('I'm a failure'), of the world and current experience ('nothing works out') and of the future ('it will never change') — and shaped by cognitive distortions (all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralisation, magnification, discounting the positive).
Symptoms of Depression
The symptoms of depression that follow — low and hopeless mood, loss of pleasure and motivation, withdrawal and reduced activity, fatigue, disturbed sleep and appetite, poor concentration. These feed back to reinforce the negative thoughts and confirm the core belief.
The published model, shown for reference. Switch to “Blank” to see the empty template you complete with a client.
When we're depressed, the way we think turns sharply against us. Beck's cognitive model shows how this negative thinking develops — from early experiences right through to the low mood of today — and how it keeps itself going.
Early experiences can lay down deep beliefs about ourselves — for example 'I'm not good enough' or 'I'm unlovable'. These beliefs can sit quietly in the background for years. To cope, we build rules to live by, like 'as long as I succeed, I'll be OK'.
Later, a setback that breaks one of those rules — a loss, a failure, a rejection — can wake the old belief up. Once it's active, the mind produces a stream of harsh automatic thoughts that fall into Beck's 'negative triad': a bleak view of yourself, of the world around you, and of the future.
Those thoughts pull mood down, drain energy and motivation, and lead us to withdraw and do less — which then seems to prove the thoughts right, so low mood and negative thinking keep each other going. Seeing the whole chain shows where therapy can step in.
How to introduce the model, guided-discovery questions, treatment targets and a behavioural experiment are available to signed-in therapists.
This diagram is a reconstruction of the published model for clinical and educational use, grounded in the sources above.
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