Cognitive theory and therapy: Distinguishing psychology from ideology

Abstract

Modern cognitive-behavioural theories and therapies are based on the assumption that cognition is central to human behaviour. They assume that the assessment of cognitive variables through self-report is the appropriate way to understand human activity, and that a focus on altering these cognitive variables will form the basis of effective therapeutic techniques. This paper argues that cognitively oriented theories are empirically only moderately successful, and that as scientific theories they are untenable. The invocation of various types of unconscious cognition to explain human behaviour, without the definitional precision necessary for the assessment of these hypothetical variables, Cannot be justified. I argue that contemporary theories which propose untestable models involving unobservable variables can be seen as efforts to shore up an unsatisfactory paradigm, and suggest that an emphasis on the development of new models which do not make the assumption of cognitive primacy may be the most fruitful for continued development in psychology.

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