Cognitive Therapy Might Take Multiple Generations to Work

by phil on Thursday Nov 8, 2012 11:04 PM

It's possible that cognitive therapy may take multiple generations to work. Here we define cognitive therapy broadly as the process by which your worldview gets adjusted to more realistic/optimistic interpretations of the world. Without deliberate sessions with a therapist spread over six months, there are still natural forces designed to give you undistorted thinking.

Your grandparents, for example, might be well-adjusted human beings, but raised their children (your parents) in an environment much different than the one they grew up in, and therefore your parents might have distorted ways of thinking about the world. Your grandparents might have ways of thinking, that for them, weren't distorted, but when shared to their kids came out that way.

Your grandparents, for example, might've told your parents that, "If you veer from the Puritan work ethic, your soul will crumble." Your parents, growing up in the 1960s counter-culture, might have been split and even depressed while living in both worlds. When your parents then raise you, they might try to present a cohesive worldview that would've helped them go through the 1960s, one free from such dire statements. But their actions might contradict their commandments, and remnants of their parents' distortions might yet get passed onto you.

You might then fine-tune your parent's exhortations further, until your children are well-adjusted and free from harmful fears of their "soul crumbling."