I dont think the fault lies with CBT, rather the implementation of CBT varies a lot. My opinion is that implementations that don’t include crucial moves, moves that are centerpieces of Focusing and Coherence Therapy, are unlikely to work well.
Something that the authors emphasize is that when the target schema is activated, there should be no attempt to explicitly argue against it or disprove it, as this risks pushing it down. Rather, the belief update happens when one experiences their old schema as vividly true, while also experiencing an entirely opposite belief as vividly true. It is the juxtaposition of believing X and not-X at the same time, which triggers an inbuilt contradiction-detection mechanism in the brain and forces a restructuring of one’s belief system to eliminate the inconsistency.
The book notes that this distinguishes Coherence Therapy from approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is premised on treating some beliefs as intrinsically irrational and then seeking to disprove them. While UtEB does not go further into the comparison, I note that this is a common complaint that I have heard of CBT: that by defaulting to negative emotions being caused by belief distortions, CBT risks belittling those negative emotions which are actually produced by correct evaluations of the world.
If you notice different parts of your mind having conflicting models of how the world works, the correct epistemic stance should be that you are trying to figure out which one is true—not privileging one of them as “more rational” and trying to disprove the other. Otherwise it will be unavoidable that your preconception will cause you to dismiss as false beliefs which are actually true. (Of course, you can still reasonably anticipate the belief update going a particular way—but you need to take seriously at least the possibility that you will be shown wrong.)
This can actually be a relief. Trying to stack the deck towards receiving favorable evidence would just also sabotage the brain’s belief update process. So you might as well give up trying to do so, relax, and just let the evidence come in.
I speculate that this limitation might also be in place in part to help avoid the error where you decide which one of two models is more correct, and then discard the other model entirely. Simultaneously running two contradictory schemas at the same time allows both of them to be properly evaluated and merged rather than one of them being thrown away outright.
Could you say more? What’s wrong with CBT?
I dont think the fault lies with CBT, rather the implementation of CBT varies a lot. My opinion is that implementations that don’t include crucial moves, moves that are centerpieces of Focusing and Coherence Therapy, are unlikely to work well.
Second the quote from Kaj as well.
From Kaj Sotala’s review of Unlocking the Emotional Brain: