DOes the fact that cognitive therapy has joined forces with behaviour therapy indicate that a purely cognitivist approach to psychological function is unsupported.

-- Barry Poole (bazzap@hotmail.com), September 04, 2002

Answers

I think you'll find various discussions in the literature about the cognitive-behavioral link. But from a historical-theoretical perspective you might consider the long tri-partite tradition described in Hilgard, E. R. (1980). The trilogy of mind: Cognition, affection, and conation. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 16, 107-117. In clinical psychology there have often been debates about whether behavior change requires prior changes in cognitions or whether insight can lead to behavior change. The answer appears to be that both are involved, and neither is much use if emotions aren't also taken into account. You could conceivably define "psychological" so that it refers only to the life of the mind, but no real-life person has only a mental life without behavioral manifestations (or, in non-behaviorist terms, without conative components). Your question might also receive different answers from researchers than from clinicians.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), September 04, 2002.