Re:Affect in Cognitive Therapy

In reading various discussions of the relationship between cognition and affect, it is important to notice what the authors involved mean when they use the terms "affect" and "cognition." Many of the apparent controversies stem from the these apparently straightforward terms being used in different ways by different authors.

When LeDoux asserts that “emotion and cognition are best thought of as separate but interacting mental functions mediated by separate but interacting brain systems,” we would agree with him. However, when it is asserted that "Affective processing then is 'appraisal', and is separate from the higher 'cognition'" we would agree with the substance of this statement but would point out that here "cognition" is being used more narrowly than is typically the case in CT.

It certainly is your right to prefer a narrower definition of "cognition" than Beck uses. However, before you declare CT's definition of "cognition" to be useless, you might want to consider that this broad definition of cognition as information processing is used rather widely in CBT, in Cognitive Psychology, and in related fields (we didn't invent this definition of cognition) and has generated a pretty impressive body of research.

There is a large body of literature in the role of appraisal in emotion in which appraisal is considered a form of cognition (for example, see the work of Richard Lazarus). Lazarus draws a distinction between "primary appraisal" and "secondary appraisal" which seems to paralell Le Doux's distinction between "affective processing" and "cognitive processing." Since we define "cognition" broadly rather than only using the term to refer to higher cognitive functions. We'd say that the processes which LeDoux refers to as "affective processing" are cognitive processes whereas LeDoux defines them as non-cognitive.

Aside from this semantic difference, there isn't much in LeDoux that we'd disagree with. Yes, the processes involved in primary appraisal are evolutionarily more primitive than the processes involved in seccondary appraisal and yes they are localized differently.

The one assertion that I'm skeptical about is the assertion that "affect influences cognition to a far greater extent than cognition influences affect." I've heard this assertion made repeatedly but I have yet to hear anyone cite evidence to support the assertion. Obviously, this is an empirical question and I look forward to seeing good research on this someday.

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