Fred, A little background from my perspective. In the early part of the century, in response to the failure of philosophical psychology to unravel ourselves solely throgh introspection, we had behaviorism. An interesting philosophy that considers thinking moot and deals with behavior. You'd probably like it, you should read B.F. Skinner's views on utopia. Some of your posts remind me warmly of him. Watson, Skinner, and Thorndike were a great force for more scientific psychology, though the view seems limited in retrospect. A lot of people found this too mechanizing. In the sixties and seventies, the field (at least in the U.S.) was dominated by non-cognitive, affect-based therapies, of the kind you seem to be considering an improvement on cognitive therapies. It was a mess. Everyone knew how to get in touch with their feelings, but no one knew what to do with them once they got in touch. There was a lot of good feeling, but no way to tell when people *were* being helped, if they were at all. Technical reviews of therapy at that time viewed it as pretty much all the same, and roughly equivalent to waiting in line for therapy and expecting to be treated. The field would not have survived that period without some change. The change brought in by cognitive therapy was that we could set a direction, set goals, measure results. The good points of the behavoral philosophy, while acknowledging that people are thinking beings, not just behaving ones. We still acknowledge the importance of affect, though it is not as greatly emphasized anymore, for various specific reasons. That's part of why when you complain that cognitive therapy ignores feelings you get some hostile responses. People haven't ignored affect, they de-emphasized its formerly central emphasis that led nowhere. So many of the best validated modern therapies combine cognitive and behavioral methods. And there is a tendency now to consider unvalidated therapies as unethical, or refuse to pay for them through health plans. That this trend may remove what was good about the "touchy feely" therapies, I agree with you. I think some of the students of Rogers were right, that one of the central things that happens in therapy is a shift in the way we feel. Eugene Gendlin for example, and his "focusing" approach to therapy is loosely cognitive but aims for a "felt shift," basically an affective transformation. He might be a good bridge for you to study to understand that affect is not so completely isolated from how we interpret our situation. It certainly makes sense to bring feelings into therapy, but it doesn't makes sense to throw out thinking and interpreting. That's a step back not a step forward ! We need to learn from neuroscience, not just use it in a narrow way to reinforce our own existing biases on ancient anachronisms of romantic vs. rationalistic human nature. kind regards, Todd
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