GENERAL DISCUSSION FORUM ARCHIVE
Return to the active forum
Emotion, Cognition & Psychotherapy
Fred H. · 01/03/01 at 1:18 PM ET
I’ve made this post to the EP forum and thought I’d try it here. Emotion, Cognition & Psychotherapy Current Psychotherapy: Jim Pretzer (BOL CT guru, 6/29/97 post, regarding key concepts and major philosophies) says: “Cognitive Therapy’s basic philosophical orientation … assumes that the individual's perception and interpretation of situations shapes the emotional and behavioral responses to the situation … hardly a radical view [since] thinkers from Buddha and the ancient Stoic philosophers up to the present have emphasized the idea that humans react to their interpretation of events … and have argued that misperceptions and misinterpretations of events result in much unnecessary distress.” Pretzer adds that, “Cognitive Therapy is based on the proposition that much psychopathology is the result of systematic errors, biases, and distortions in perceiving and interpreting events. These cognitive factors are seen as resulting in dysfunctional responses to events which, in turn, may have consequences which serve to perpetuate the dysfunctional cognitions.” This explanation of emotion is useless, not to mention misleading. Buddha, the Stoics, CT, and most psychotherapy theory, never gets to the essence of what emotions/emotional disorders are. The primacy of emotion over cognition/thoughts/beliefs is grossly underestimated/understated. (Extinction therapy, in practice, seems to be an exception.) The following is a more useful and biologically correct model (based on current neuroscience research, discoveries, & insights): Emotion: “Emotion”, in the following explanation, refers mainly to the primary emotions, but obviously has tremendous overlap and implications regarding secondary emotion and mood. “Cognition” refers to thinking and reasoning processing, much of it occurring unconsciously (see note below). Emotions are initiated by evolutionarily old non-cognitive subcortical emotional systems. Cognition is a product of evolutionarily new cortical systems. A result of evolution is that emotion influences cognition to a far greater extent than cognition influences emotion. This also is a critical distinction. An individual may be somewhat capable of cognitively & consciously eliciting fear, despair, rage, etc., but the notion that he cognitively chooses (consciously, unconsciously, or automatically) to respond to life’s various stimuli by cognitively choosing self-defeating & counter-productive emotions (suffering) is essentially false. The evolutionarily old non-cognitive subcortical emotional systems, constantly making subconscious, quick, sloppy, independent, and introspectively (cognitively) unavailable “appraisals” of various stimuli, are initiating the emotions. These subcortical systems have worked great for evolution & species survival, but often cause lots of unnecessary suffering for us individuals and, unfortunately, often are not readily responsive to conscious cognitive cortical control. Emotional processing (similar to pain processing) occurs in the absence of, and has tremendous impact on, consciousness/cognition. References: LeDoux, The Emotional Brain (1996); Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens (1999); Griffiths, What Emotions Really Are (1997)
Current psychotherapies, for the most part, do not seem to understand/appreciate/emphasize the evolution, biology, & separateness of emotional and cognitive systems, or the primacy of the primitive emotional systems over evolutionarily newer cognitive systems and consciousness.
There are six known primary emotions (AKA affect programs & automated appraisal systems), fear, anger, sadness, disgust, surprise, joy. There are various secondary emotions (e.g. shame, guilt, jealousy, etc.) There are various moods (e.g. depression, elation, anxiety, etc.). A lot is understood about the biology and workings of the primary emotions -- less about secondary emotions. Some believe cognition plays a greater role in the secondary emotions. Neurochemical state plays a large role in mood. It’s most helpful to think of secondary emotion and mood as extensions of and/or resulting from primary emotions (keeping in mind that mood can significantly affect the propensities of primary/secondary emotions). Without the primary emotions, secondary emotion and mood are of little consequence. Understanding the biology of the primary emotions is essential in truly understanding emotion/mood and in dealing with emotional/mood disorders.
Emotion and Cognition -- Separate Phenomena from Separate Systems:
Emotion and cognition are separate phenomena from separate neural systems. This is similar to the separateness of physical pain and cognition. As the systems initiating pain are not “cognitive”, neither are the systems initiating emotion. This is a necessary and critical distinction
Conclusion: Just understanding these biological realities (these concepts aren’t difficult, just contrary/foreign to our preconceived notions) will generally be quite helpful for most people dealing with emotional disorders -- being consciously/cognitively aware of the biology (primacy) of emotion will (paradoxically?) enhance one’s chances of conscious/cognitive control over emotion. Also, this understanding will enhance psychotherapy’s ability to better determine which emotion(s) and/or mood(s) are causing the emotional distress and then devise ways/therapies to modify/reprogram/manage emotions/moods (behaviorally, cognitively, chemically, or otherwise).
Note: LeDoux, in The Emotional Brain (1996), notes that, “Given that emotional and cognitive processing both largely occur unconsciously, it is possible that emotional and cognitive processing are the same, or, as it is usually said, that emotions is just a kind of cognition.” He goes on to say that, “... there is a not-so-benign version of the idea that emotion is a kind of cognition ... by squeezing emotion into the traditional view of cognition – cognition as thinking and reasoning.” He concludes that, “emotion and cognition are best thought of as separate but interacting mental functions mediated by separate but interacting brain systems,” noting that when a certain region of the brain is damaged, animals or humans lose the capacity to “appraise” the emotional significance of certain stimuli without any loss in the capacity to perceive the same stimuli as objects; that the emotional meaning of a stimulus can be appraised by the brain before the perceptual systems have fully processed the stimulus – your brain can know something is good or bad before it knows exactly what it is.
Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated. Fred H.
Replies:
|
| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |
Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.
