Effects of distraction on thinking and affect in depressed patients.
Beck's cognitive model of depression suggests that negative cognitions can maintain depression. Thus reducing the frequency of negative cognitions should reduce depression. Consistent with this proposition, in low endogenous patients with primary major depressive disorder, distraction produced fewer depressing thoughts than the control procedure, with corresponding differences in self-report and psychomotor measures.
D000339:Affect; D001288:Attention; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D003071:Cognition; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D013850:Thinking