Please read
http://www.bps.org.uk/news/internal-conflicts-prevent-depressed-people-improving-their-mood
and related paper
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/bjc.12050/
Self-discrepancy theory by Edward Tory Higgins in 1987: Depression is associated with the intra-personal conflict between perceived actual self, and some ideal, standard, goal or aspiration. An "actual / ought discrepancy" triggers agitated depression (characterized by feelings of guilt, apprehension, anxiety or fear). An "actual / ideal discrepancy" instigates dejected depression which is characterized by feelings of failure, disappointment, devaluation or shame.
Thanks for your answer. In my view Higgins' are more discrepancies than conflicts. I am not (actual self) as I would like to be (ideal self) there is a tension to achieve my goal, which it could be a healthy tension sometimes. However, the type of conflict we are working with goes beyond this discrepancy.
We focus on the conflictive association between a discrepant and a congruent construct. In these cases, the need for change (, self-ideal discrepancy: she wants to "love herself" but does not) might be hindered by the need for self-ideal congruency (continue being protective). What an Implicative Dilemma tells us is that the need for change expressed by the discrepant construct is in conflict with the need for coherence expressed by the congruent construct. Thus, the patient unwittingly hesitates in taking a clear course of action because striving for loving herself has negative implications for her identity. In the view of such a dilemma, change may be less likely to occur because abandoning the symptoms would result in invalidation of core aspects of the self.
In fact, we tried to use Higgins model and clients were quite confused with the "ought self", giving diverse meanings to his figure, so we decided to leave it aside.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Social Psychology
- Attitude