Lesson 2 of 6 · Why it holds itself in place
Doing less is the sensible move, and it is the trap
Depression takes the reward out of things. When nothing gives back, the reasonable short term response is to do less of it. Cancel. Stay in. Do not reply.
Every one of those decisions makes sense on the day it is made. Nobody chooses badly here.
But doing less is exactly what removes the last of the reward. The day loses its shape, sleep drifts, and the hours that used to be filled with activity get filled instead with thinking about yourself. In depression, thinking about yourself means thinking badly about yourself, and that supplies the evidence for the conclusion that started the withdrawal.
That loop has a name. It is the behavioural model of depression, reduced reward and increased avoidance feeding each other, and the one thing this course teaches you to do in lesson four is built directly on it.
What the research says
Depression is described here as a loop of falling reward and rising avoidance, and the treatment built on it breaks down into noticing what you do, scheduling more of what matters, and working on avoidance. Each of those is small enough to start today.
Describes the behavioural model of depression as a loop of reduced positive reinforcement and increased avoidance, and decomposes the treatment built on it into activity monitoring, activity scheduling, work on avoidance, and values. It describes a model. It does not by itself prove that the model is the whole story.
Kanter JW, Manos RC, Bowe WM, Baruch DE, Busch AM, Rusch LC (2010). What is behavioral activation? A review of the empirical literature. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(6), 608 to 620 doi