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Thinking Postcognitively about Depression

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Comprehensive Handbook of Cognitive Therapy

Abstract

The resurgence of the cognitive perspective in the early 1970s was so strong that it became widely described as the “cognitive revolution” (Dember, 1974). More than a decade later, there still has been little in the way of critical response or sober reevaluation of the enthusiastic claims and polemics that accompanied this shift in perspective. As measured by the continued outpouring of articles, chapters, books, and even new journals, the cognitive perspective is clearly in ascendance in clinical psychology, as well as much of the rest of the discipline. Dissent is muted, and, with the exception of the perennial question of the causal priority of cognition over emotion (Lazarus, 1984; Zajonc, 1984), there is little in the way of spirited theoretical debate. On the rare occasions when theoretical disagreements do occur, they are largely confined to minor issues arising within the cognitive perspective, rather than representing any challenge to the basic assumptions of the perspective.

Cut the pie any way you like, “meanings’’ just ain’t in the head.

Putnam, 1975, p 227

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48109, USA

    James C. Coyne

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  1. James C. Coyne
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Cognitive Therapy, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Arthur Freeman  & Karen M. Simon  & 

  2. Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Arizona, Arizona Health Sciences Center, Tucson, Arizona, USA

    Larry E. Beutler

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

    Hal Arkowitz

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Coyne, J.C. (1989). Thinking Postcognitively about Depression. In: Freeman, A., Simon, K.M., Beutler, L.E., Arkowitz, H. (eds) Comprehensive Handbook of Cognitive Therapy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9779-4_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9779-4_12

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