When working with depressed patients, psychiatrist Aaron Beck found that "the characteristic thoughts and affects of depression are determined by persistent cognitive patterns, designated as schemas. The schemas are attitudes, beliefs and assumptions which influence the way an individual orients himself to a situation, recognizes and labels the salient features, and conceptualizes the experience. The idiosyncratic schemas in depression consist of negative conceptions of the individual's worth, personal characteristics, performance or health, and of nihilistic expectations. When these schemas are evoked they mold the content and lead to the thought content and lead to the typical depressive feelings of sadness, guilt, loneliness, and pessimism."

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/488402

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