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Affect in Cognitive Therapy
Fred H. · 08/09/01 at 3:29 PM ET
Affect in Cognitive Therapy Also, you say, “ I would not rule out the possibility that affect can sometimes occur without being elicited by cognition but I do not see this happening a lot in my clinical practice.” This also seems to be a meaningless statement, especially considering the primacy of affect over higher cognition. In reality, affective processing takes place separately by subcortical subconscious neural systems with or without or in spite of, and quicker than, the higher thinking and reasoning (conscious and subconscious) cognition. And the influence of affect on higher cognition is far greater than the influence of cognition on affective processing – this is the primacy of affect over cognition. But, using the terms as broadly as you do, “affect” would always have to be “elicited” by “cognition”. What else is there? Unless you’re referring to the influence mood (neurochemical state) has on affect. But even then, as you use the words, mood would influence “cognition” which then “elicits” affect. Generally, affect and affective processing refer to the “affect programs” (AKA primary emotions and/or automated appraisal systems) – fear, anger, sadness, disgust, surprise, joy. The affect programs are encapsulated/separate neural systems, separate from the higher cognitive thinking and reasoning systems. Primary emotion and higher cognition are separate phenomena from separate neural systems, similar to the separateness of physical pain and higher cognition. Primary emotions are initiated by evolutionarily old subcortical emotional systems. Higher cognition is a product of evolutionarily new cortical systems. (See note below) LeDoux, in The Emotional Brain (1996), notes that since emotional and cognitive processing both largely occur unconsciously, it is possible that emotional and cognitive processing are the same, or, a kind of cognition. The traditional view of cognition, cognition as thinking and reasoning, is an erroneous view regarding emotional processing. 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 and 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. Affective processing then is “appraisal”, and is separate from the higher “cognition”. A result of evolution is the primacy of affect/emotion over cognition – affect influences cognition to a far greater extent than cognition influences affect. References: LeDoux, The Emotional Brain (1996); Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens (1999); Griffiths, What Emotions Really Are (1997) P.S. – I’m not saying CT doesn’t “work”. But, do the various CT efficacy studies prove CT is effective? The problem is that the CT efficacy studies can never be double blind (per Seligman), I doubt they can truly be single blind, and most/all of the evaluation typically involves people who want CT to succeed. Plus there is the very important “therapeutic alliance” element in CT effectiveness. So I’m not convinced CT’s more effective than placebo (placebo is 70+% effective under certain situations), which is not necessarily all bad. Anyway, I think placebo effect is probably the Holy Grail we should be trying to understand and use. (I know placebo is considered by many to be a result of “expectation” which would seem to involve top-down higher cognition. My view is that placebo works because the influence is at the gut/visceral level – the subconscious primitive emotional appraisal systems are being affected/influenced/modified. It would seem that higher cognition may somehow be involved, but the primacy of emotion would seem paramount.) Fred H.
JP – In a 3/97 post, The Role of Affect in Cognitive Therapy, you say that, “When we talk of cognition, we include many forms of information processing… [and that]… what is discussed in terms of affective processing we would consider to be cognition.” That’s seems a very broad (and useless) definition for cognition. For example, reflex and physical pain are results of “forms” of information processing – are these “cognition”? Not really.
Note: In addition to the primary emotions, 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 would seem to be of little consequence. Understanding and appreciating the biology of the primary emotions is essential in truly gaining some sort of reasonable understanding and explanation of emotion/mood and in dealing with emotional/mood disorders.
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