Richard Gipps, 'CBT: A Philosophical Appraisal'

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) theorists propose that disturbances in cognition underlie and maintain much emotional disturbance. The cognitive addition to behavioural therapy typically consists in collaboratively noticing, restructuring, de- fusing from, and challenging these cognitions by the therapist and the patient. In this talk I consider the theory of CBT rather than the therapy, particularly the central significance given to cognition in healthy and disturbed emotional function. I suggest that if ‘cognition’ is used to mean merely our belief and thought, then CBT theory provides an implausible model of much emotional distress. If, on the other hand, ‘cognition’ refers to the processing of meaning, then CBT risks losing its distinctiveness from all therapies other than the most blandly behavioural.