Intellectually...but,...

I think my response to Affect and CBT fits here, too.  Clients may feel belittled by the de-emphasis of feelings often seen with CBT.  As a practitioner, I reflect the emotion or make statements indicating an understanding of the strength of the emotion and move the discussion towards a more rational expression of the feeling as real, but not reflecting reality.  You feel hopeless, but you can manage, I know that it is difficult.  Expressing some of my own reasons for that statement, I encourage clients to take a different perspective.  Even in severe, clinical depressions (which MAY NOT respond to such rationalism by a positive change in the emotion), thinking differently about the emotions emphasizes the fact that emotions are real but do not reflect reality and offers some hope and different behavioral reactions to the feeling.Mary

Replies:

Does CBT belittle affect?, by Jim Pretzer, 6/29/97 Untitled, by Mary Deaver, 6/30/97

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