A core idea of
cognitive therapy is that suffering is generated, in part, by evaluations; the
targets of these evaluations include experiences that occur ‘outside’ the
corpus of the evaluator (what I call the client) as well as sensations that
occur within. One of our tasks as cognitive therapists is to assist the client
in changing the evaluations thereby lessening his or her suffering. We do this
through different ‘tricks’; cognitive restructuring, perhaps the most uniquely
‘cognitive’ of these tricks, helps the
client doubt the certainty of his her or her evaluations. Within the gap
generated by this doubt lay the fertile ‘ground’ of new empowering
possibilities of thought and action. In a sense, doubt becomes our therapeutic ‘friend’.
What greater doubt can there be than that the world of suffering is nothing
more than whispers of imagination of a disembodied mind? In fact, this is the
basic position of the Solipsists, a philosophical tradition that begins with
Gorgias of ancient Greece (485 –380 BCE). While it may not be helpful to
encourage a client to disregard a financial problem as an irrelevant projection,
it can be immensely useful to get them to doubt the certainty that fuels their
immobilization.
But then, who
can know for sure?
