Abstract
The cognitive-evolutionist perspective (CEP) is a cognitive psychotherapeutic perspective focused on the treatment of psychopathology resulting from abusive and, more specifically, neglectful family and interpersonal contexts. CEP attempts to solve the problems and obstacles that developmental trauma generates on a relational, cognitive, and metacognitive level in psychotherapy and to provide theoretical and practical solutions to the relational difficulties of psychotherapy, in particular in the therapeutic alliance. The relational nature of the CEP inspired specific intervention focused on the therapeutic alliance and relationship, in particular promoting the simultaneous use in the same patient of different treatments by different therapists in separate but coordinated settings, in order to counteract the activation of the implicit relational memories of disorganized attachment. The CEP model pays attention to the exploration of tacit and unconscious knowledge but not in Freudian terms and remains in the cognitive clinical domain, although it also assumes that developmental trauma prevents standard cognitive behavioral therapy from working at its most optimal.
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Farina, B. (2021). The Role of Trauma in Psychotherapeutic Complications and the Worth of Giovanni Liotti’s Cognitive-Evolutionist Perspective (CEP): Commentary on Chapter “Strengths and Limitations of Case Formulation in Constructivist Cognitive Behavioral Therapies”. In: Ruggiero, G.M., Caselli, G., Sassaroli, S. (eds) CBT Case Formulation as Therapeutic Process. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63587-9_18
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