Varga Cognition, Representations and Embodied Emotions

Erkenn (2014) 79:165–190
DOI 10.1007/s10670-013-9484-x
Cognition, Representations and Embodied Emotions:

Investigating Cognitive Theory
Somogy Varga
Received: 20 July 2012 / Accepted: 27 March 2013 / Published online: 27 April 2013
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract Cognitive theory (CT) is currently the most widely acknowledged

framework used to describe the psychological processes in affective disorders like
depression. The purpose of this paper is to assess the philosophical assumptions
upon which CT rests. It is argued that CT must be revised due to significant flaws in
many of these philosophical assumptions. The paper contains suggestions as to how
these problems could be overcome in a manner that would secure philosophical
accuracy, while also providing an account that is better suited to explaining some of
the cognitive, emotional, and bodily manifestations of affective disorders.
1 Introduction
In recent years there has been a reawakened philosophical interest in the topic of
emotion and its relationship to cognition and mental representation. While this
interest has resulted in the emergence of a dynamic field that is characterized by
interdisciplinary research, relatively little philosophical attention has been devoted
to the conditions in which emotions are disordered. Nevertheless, such attention
could result in a mutual enrichment. Relevant knowledge from psychopathology
could inform and correct philosophical inquiry, while psychological and psychiatric
theories could benefit from a philosophical assessment of some of their core
assumptions (Varga 2011, 2012).
In this paper, an attempt will be made to work towards such a mutual enrichment
by assessing the foundations of the influential cognitive theory (CT) as defended by
Beck et al. CT is probably the most commonly used theoretical approach to
understanding the psychological processes involved in affective disorders and to
conceptualize the adequate psychotherapy. Alford and Beck (1997, 41–42) claim
S. Varga (&)
Department of Philosophy, University of Memphis, 327 Clement Hall, Memphis, TN 38152, USA
e-mail: svarga@memphis.edu
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CT is of both practical and explanatory value: ‘‘The purpose of cognitive theory is

to provide conceptual tools for effective action or practice in such clinical contexts.
It also explicates the factors or processes responsible for the development,
maintenance, correction, and prevention of psychopathology.’’ I should note that
what I outline here is the most influential and canonical version of CT, as espoused
by founding fathers like Beck and others. There are of course approaches to CT that
deviate from the canonical version and it is therefore possible that some of these
might not subscribe to all of the assumptions that I deal with. Consequently, the
critique and corrections I put forward have broad applicability, although there might
be versions of CT that will not be vulnerable to all of the concerns that I raise.
In CT, emotional disturbances like those in depression are thought to be a result
of an inaccurate cognitive mind-set or an inadequate way of thinking about self and
world (Beck 1967; Beck and Alford 2009; Wells 2008, 2), as a matter of ‘‘faulty
information processing’’ or ‘‘distorted and dysfunctional beliefs’’ (Bracken and
Thomas 2008, 86). Maladaptive cognition is thus given a causal role in depression
(Kuyken et al. 2005, 114; DeRubeis et al. 2008). CT is the theoretical foundation of
so-called Cognitive Therapy,1 which is promoted as the therapy of choice for many
emotional disturbances and constitutes the predominant paradigm of psychotherapy
in the treatment of depression (Epp and Dobson 2010; Holmes 2001; Ghaemi 2007).
In CT-informed therapy, the aim is to alter depressive cognitive styles by
challenging and modifying irrational and dysfunctional thought.
Of course, a proponent of CT could respond to the first aim of this paper—to
philosophically evaluate CT—by saying that, instead of philosophical assumptions,
it is firmly based on scientific principles (Padesky and Beck 2003; Dryden et al.
2010, 226–277 in Dobson 2010, 262).2 Such a proponent may remind us that CT-
based therapy is currently the first-option treatment for diverse conditions because it
has been successfully formalized in comprehensive therapeutic manuals and has
been positively evaluated in randomized controlled trials (Epp and Dobson 2010;
Hollon and Beck 2004; Roth and Fonagy 2005).3 However, there might be an
epistemological misconstruction in such a strategy that neglects the fact that in
many cases the boundary between scientific and philosophical issues cannot be
drawn sharply. While generating numerous testable hypotheses, scientific theories
emerge in paradigms that always involve untestable or circular assumptions.
Consequently, it is unproblematic to say that empirical studies can prove that people
suffering from, or vulnerable to, depression have a propensity to assess themselves,
the situations they encounter, and their relations to other people in a certain way.
Also, it is equally unproblematic to hold that empirical studies can help to evaluate
1
‘‘Cognitive therapy is the application of cognitive theory to the individual’’ (Beck and Alford 2009,
300). Also: ‘‘we do not believe that the therapy could be applied effectively without knowledge of the
theory’’ (Beck et al. 1979, 4).
2
Indeed, Padesky and Beck have critiqued other approaches (for example, Ellis’ rational emotive
behavior therapy REBT) for representing a more philosophical approach, while pointing out the more
scientific base of CT (Padesky and Beck 2003).
3
In recent years, however, there has been an increase in discussion about the effectiveness of such an
approach, especially in terms of clinical improvement and protection against relapse (Brewin 2006; Roth
and Fonagy 2005).
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Cognition, Representations and Embodied Emotions 167
the effectiveness of the treatment process (McEachrane 2003, 82). However, it is

problematic (and circular) to hold that empirical studies can provide satisfactory
evaluation of all the underlying key assumptions.
Philosophy can indeed make a valuable contribution here because, as will be
made clear, CT rests on certain philosophical assumptions (McEachrane 2003;
Lacewing 2004; Whiting 2006a) that have a long history (Butera 2011). This paper
will assess these philosophical assumptions and argue that due to several flaws, CT
must be revised. In the final section of the paper, a way will be sketched in which
these flaws could be corrected in a manner that would not only secure philosophical
accuracy but also result in an account that is better suited to explaining some of the
cognitive, emotional, and bodily characteristics in affective disorders. Furthermore,
the conceptual adjustment might lead to improvements in the treatment protocols
and the empirical testing of the protocols.
2 The Philosophy of CT
The two primary historical factors that led to the emergence of CT were the
‘cognitive revolution’ in psychology, on the one hand, and the growing dissatis-
faction with both stimulus–response psychology and psychoanalysis on the other
(Dobson and Dozois 2010). At the same time, theoretical psychology began to
acknowledge the existence of ‘inner’ mental maps (Holmes 2010; Westen 2005).
Partly due to these factors, the 1950s and early 1960s saw an increasing emphasis on
the role of cognitive processes in psychiatric disorders (Beck and Alford 2009, 232).
Albert Ellis—considered by many to be, along with Aaron Beck, the father of CT—
presented a theory of emotional dysfunction in the 1950s that has become an
important premise of CT. The so-called ABC model of emotional disturbance was
meant to describe how cognitive processing (as opposed to the environment)
influenced emotional and behavioral reactions. While CT underwent numerous
modifications over the ensuing four decades, its general point remains that mental
disorder is intrinsically linked to cognitive disturbance.4
From this outlook, depression is conceptualized as a ‘‘disorder of thought’’ (Beck
and Alford 2009, 208, 239) and the pathological affective disturbance ‘‘can be
regarded as the consequence of the way individuals view themselves and their
environments’’ (Ibid., 231). The primary causal factor in the development of
depression is the ‘‘activation of idiosyncratic cognitive patterns that divert thinking
into specific channels that deviate from reality’’ (Beck and Alford 2009, 243; Wells
2000, 3–4). A central claim is that depression is characterized by inaccuracies in
information processing that therapy aims to correct (Beck and Alford 2009; Clark
4
The idea of an underlying cognitive disturbance serves as a point of departure for many other and less
widespread approaches like Ellis’ rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), and, to a lesser degree, for
the more recent acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and for some of the so-called ‘third wave’
approaches (Dobson and Dozois 2010). Also, other directions that either place greater emphasis on
metacognitive interventions or attempt to insert positive distortions into cognitive processes to a certain
degree still remain within the cognitive paradigm.
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et al. 1999). As Judith Beck (1995, 2), one of the currently most influential
proponents of this approach, notes:
The therapist seeks in a variety of ways to produce cognitive change—change
in the patient’s thinking and belief system—in order to bring about enduring
emotional and behavioral change.
Additionally, Aaron Beck’s ‘‘cognitive-content specificity hypothesis’’ postulates
that depression has a distinctive cognitive profile that is characterized by thoughts
focused on incompetence, failure, or worthlessness (Clark et al. 1989, 1990;
Szentagotai et al. 2008). As we shall see in the next section, these negatively
distorted thoughts and beliefs emerge from the activation of negative and more
fundamental belief-systems that are stored in long-term memory.
2.1 Schemas and Automatic Thoughts
A central characteristic of CT is a distinction between ‘‘fundamental beliefs’’ or

‘‘schemas’’ and something like second-order thoughts called ‘‘automatic thoughts’’
that emerge on the basis of schemas. These schemas begin developing in childhood
and they contain beliefs which ‘‘are understandings that are so fundamental and
deep that [patients] often do not articulate them, even to themselves’’ (Beck 1995,
16). Schemas are depicted as stored bodies of knowledge containing fundamental
beliefs which are ‘‘regarded by the person as absolute truths, just the way things
‘are’’’ (Ibid.) Schemas interact with incoming information and help shape
experience (Beck and Alford 2009, 255; Williams et al. 1997).
Dysfunctional schemas are thought to be causative elements in the development,
maintenance, and recurrence of a variety of mental disorders such as depression.
The schemas of depression-prone individuals are considered to be dysfunctional
because they contain beliefs about self and world that are rigid and unrealistically
negative (Kovacs and Beck 1978; Beck 1983; Hammen 1997; Epp and Dobson
2010; Blatt 2004). CT maintains that depressed individuals possess negatively
biased cognitive schemas that reflect past experiences, and organize and structure
new experiences. In the case of numerous and significant early negative
experiences, negatively biased schemas (‘‘I’m vulnerable,’’ ‘‘I am worthless,’’ or
‘‘the world is dangerous’’) may develop which influence the preferential processing
of information. Over time, these schemas often become unconditionally acknowl-
edged as truths (Wells 2000), in the sense that they are not seen as contingent
construals to which alternatives are possible. It is on the background of such aspects
that Charland (2006) has argued that depression assumes the ‘‘character of a
cognitive module.’’5
5
This hypothesis has been put forward by Charland (2006), who argues that ‘‘a good theoretical
formulation and defence of this hypothesis can be found in Aaron Beck’s well-known cognitive theory of
depression’’ (2006, 221). Charland’s point that the emotional system is marked by a susceptibility to
develop a modular structure (Ibid., 225) may be right, but it is unclear whether this can in any way further
our understanding of emotional disturbances. We would still have to explain why emotional systems in
some individuals and not others are afflicted. CT provides an explanation for this, but one that does not
clearly sustain the modularity hypothesis.
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Cognitive theory maintains that while schemas are mostly not readily accessible to
consciousness, they are both expressed in and activated by automatic thoughts (Alford
and Beck 1997, 16–17). Schemas become apparent to both the patient and therapist as
they identify the consistencies or themes that run through the automatic thoughts.
Cognitive training is supposed to make people able to ‘‘catch’’ the automatic thoughts
that follow an event and trigger the emotional response (Beck 1976, 26; Beck and
Alford 2009). Beck (1995, 14) notes that when reading her book on cognitive therapy,
such automatic thoughts could be: ‘‘‘This is just too hard. I’m so dumb. … I’ll never
make it as a therapist.’’’ Automatic thoughts are the situation specific ‘‘actual words or
images that go through a person’s mind’’ (Beck 1995, 16). The most emotion-eliciting
automatic thoughts are thought to consist of some kind of mental representation
involving actual words; the authors also note that mental imagery can elicit the same
effect. But importantly, such mental imagery is also thought of as being conceptually
structured (e.g., Beck and Alford 2009, 26, 37–38).
Overall, the relationship between core beliefs, automatic thoughts, and emotional
distress is viewed in the following way: experience is interpreted within the framework
of schemas, which lead to specific automatic thoughts that, in turn, generate specific
emotions. Consequently, therapy seeks to determine the content of such maladaptive
information processing strategies. The aim is to capture automatic thoughts that
allegedly elicit emotions in the moment and, on that basis, to explore the underlying,
general belief-schemas that these thoughts express. Then the attempt is made to
change the semantic information that such emotion-eliciting thoughts contain and
modify the content of basic schemas (Beck et al. 1979; Beck and Alford 2009). The
patient is encouraged to logically challenge and test thoughts against reality, both in
session and as in-between-sessions homework (Milton 2008, 104), and to create
substitute representations that help restore positive mood states. In this framework,
once the correction is achieved and consistency with intersubjectively valid standards
is attained, these schemas can no longer trigger the unpleasant emotional disturbances.
3 Assessing the Underlying Assumptions of CT
After this brief outline, I want to isolate underlying assumptions on which CT is

based. These assumptions can be categorized into two groups, relating to
philosophical issues of mental representation and introspection on the one hand
(3.1–3.3) and emotion and cognition on the other (3.4–3.5). The assumptions are as
follows: Thoughts are mentally represented (3.1), words are the vehicles of thought
(3.2), we have direct access to our thoughts (3.3), cognition constitutes/causes
emotions (3.4), and schemas constitute the ‘fundament’ of our thinking (3.5). In the
following, they will be tested one by one.
3.1 ‘Thinking that P.’ Non-representational, Explanatory, Expressive

and Transparent Uses
In the CT literature, cognition is depicted as essentially involving ‘‘internal

‘conversations’’’ and ‘‘inner speech,’’ in which we constantly ‘‘‘talk’ silently to
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ourselves’’ (Sheldon 1995, 150–151). Accordingly, the automatic thoughts that

accompany experience are described as on-going ‘‘automatic self-statements’’
(Hollon and Kendall 1980; Freeman et al. 1989, 2005), ‘‘cognitive self-talk’’ (Safren
et al. 2000, 328), ‘‘internal exclamations’’ (Newman 2006, 212), or as a ‘‘running
commentary’’ (Mulhern et al., 38). While the talk of ‘‘statements,’’ ‘‘exclamations,’’
‘‘speech,’’ or ‘‘commentary’’ indicate that in CT, thinking implies the representation
of propositional content, other authors spell this out more explicitly. In their recent
book on CT and depression, Gilson et al. (2009), 128) speak of automatically arising
thoughts as ‘‘self-talk sentences.’’ Riskind (2006, 63) maintains that automatic
thoughts are ‘‘consciously accessible verbal thoughts and pictorial images.’’ Beck
(1995, 16) concurs, arguing that automatic thoughts are ‘‘actual words or images
that go through a person’s mind’’ and that the therapist should aim to capture (Ibid.,
88).6
As these examples demonstrate, CT posits a very strong conceptual link between
cognitive events and mental representations and—akin to the Representational
Theory of Mind (Sterelny 1990) from the philosophy of cognitive science—regards
representations as the vehicles that drive our thinking and carry mental content.
However, CT also maintains that there is a representation of propositional content
involved. In a concrete therapeutic encounter, this means that the report of the
patient in the form of ‘I thought that P’ is understood as entailing the representation
of propositional content, which the patient can ‘catch.’ In other words, there is a
general assumption that thought involves conscious mental representation and a
more specific assumption that mental representations are speech-like, that is,
structurally isomorphic with spoken language (words are the vehicles of thought). I
shall first deal with the more general assumption.
As the following conceptual examination shall make clear, the general
assumption that thought involves conscious mental representation is flawed and
potentially damaging to a precise understanding of the patient’s self-reporting. I
shall introduce a couple of conceptual distinctions and argue that the formula ‘I
think/thought that P’ can convey different meanings depending on whether it is used
in a non-representational (3.1.1), explanatory (3.1.2), expressive (3.1.3), or
transparent (3.1.3) manner.
(3.1.1) In order to demonstrate a non-representational use, I want to draw
attention to the crucial distinction between ‘thinking’ and ‘having thoughts’ (see
McEachrane 2003; Malcolm 1972; Davidson 1987).7 The fact that we sometimes
use the verb ‘think’ in a transitive manner and, thus, imply that it has a propositional
object seems to mislead the CT to think that ‘thinking’ involves the representation
of a propositional content. However, in everyday language, saying that a person
6
To avoid misunderstandings, it is important to recall that mental imagery is also thought to be
conceptually structured (e.g., Beck and Alford 2009, 26, 37–38).
7
Several of Malcolm’s connecting ideas have been contested (for instance by Davidson), but the aspect
that I emphasize here is not really controversial. For instance, while Davidson (2001, 97–100) criticizes
specific aspects and implications of Malcolm’s idea (specifically the question of attributing of ‘thinking’
to animals), he similarly argues that we should not conceive of thinking as having ‘‘representations before
the mind’s eye’’ and urges us to ‘‘give up … the idea that thoughts require mental objects’’ (Davidson
1987, 456).
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‘thought that P’ does not imply that he thought of P, or that P occurred to him in his
thoughts. Let us look at some examples. When I enter my son’s classroom to pick
him up, it sometimes takes a while until I spot him among the many children
wearing the same uniform. When I finally do, I am surely aware of my seeing him,
but in general, the thought ‘that is my son’ does not occur in my thoughts. This
observation is also valid from a third-person perspective. When a cab driver stops
his car at an intersection because the light is red, he is cognitively aware of the light
being red, but the thought ‘the light is red’ does not necessarily occur in his mind. In
other words, our speaking of ‘thinking’ does not necessarily entail that we represent
propositional content: ‘he thought that p’ does not entail the formula, ‘the thought
that p occurred to him.’ Regarding ‘having thoughts’ as the prototype of ‘thinking’
is bought at the expense of mistakenly taking grammatical form to be the index of
psychological reality.
If this is right, if ‘he thought that P’ can mean something different than the
formula ‘the thought that P occurred to him’ then there is a risk that the CT
informed practitioner will misinterpret the patient. However, the picture is even
more complex, as there are yet other intelligible uses of the formula ‘I thought that
P’ that carry different meanings.
(3.1.2.) It is perfectly intelligible to use the sentence ‘I thought that P’ in an
explanatory way, which not only does not involve mental representations, but which
cannot even be considered as involving reporting on actually occurred thoughts. As
noted, when we say that the cab driver thinks that the light is red, this need not
involve positing that there is a particular representation going through his mind.
Rather, we attribute thoughts to him and use the term ‘thinking’ to describe and
explain the situation in question in a way that makes sense of his actions. In other
words, when we attribute the thought to the cab driver we do not necessarily
designate some mentally represented entity, but rather the situation that he is in. As
Dan Hutto (2008, 433) notes, we use such sentences ‘‘to fill in the content clause,
but this is only a convenient way of denoting the situation that it is directed at non-
contentfully.’’ Also, when asked to explain why he stopped, the cab driver may
simply tell us ‘I thought the light was red’. But in that case, he would not be
reporting on words or images represented in his mind, rather, he would be
explaining his experience of the situation and his reaction in a particular way, which
involves some kind of awareness of the light being red. When listening to his
explanation, unless we are given further information, under normal circumstances
we cannot assume that he is reporting on thoughts that actually occurred to him.
(3.1.3.) There is in our everyday language yet another non-representational way
in which it is entirely intelligible to use the sentence ‘I thought that P’. We may use
it an expressive way, which is neither about reporting on thoughts or explaining
actions, but about expressing emotions. In order to see this, let us imagine that
Malcolm’s car driver is involved in a serious car accident right after stopping at the
red light. When a concerned friend or therapist later asks him what went through his
head in that life-threatening situation, he may very well reply, ‘I thought I was going
to die.’ But what does his answer mean? It is rather unlikely that he means that the
thought ‘I thought I was going to die’ or a particular image with the same content
passed through his mind. Instead, his utterance might very well convey the manner
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in which he experienced being in the dangerous situation, feeling frightened and

passive. In other words, in this case his utterance ‘I thought I was going to die’ is not
explaining (or at least not only explaining) but expressing the terrifying emotional
experience that he underwent. Thus, his voiced thought might very well have been
the first time these words actually occurred to him.
(3.1.4.) The last meaning connected to the formula ‘I thought that P’ that I want
to mention can be referred to as the transparent use. Recall that in CT, it is assumed
that the proper answer to the question of the therapist ‘Do you think that P?’
involves an introspective process that aims to detect pre-existing thoughts.
However, it is perfectly intelligible to attribute thoughts to ourselves without
turning inward at all. Indeed, in many cases where we think that we arrive at a
certain self-ascription of a mental entity by inwardly attending (introspection), we
are in fact attending ‘outward’ to those aspects of the world that our mental states
are about. That is, sometimes we simply acquire knowledge about our minds and
arrive at self-ascriptions by looking outward. The question ‘Do you think that P?’
may be transparent to a corresponding question about the world, which can be
answered by considering reasons that count for or against P itself (Evans 1982;
Moran 2001). It is perfectly intelligible to attribute thoughts to ourselves without
turning inward at all. Given the CT framework, the therapist may easily mistake this
utterance as a direct, introspectively achieved report about the patient’s inner life.
The analysis provided so far has established a couple of interlinked points. It
became clear that when somebody uses the formula ‘I thought that P’, we are not
warranted in assuming that the relevant thought was mentally represented to him or
her. Further complicating matters, we have established that using this formula does
not even necessarily entail that the person is reporting on thoughts at all. He may
just as well be explaining actions, expressing emotions (see also section (e)) or
forming beliefs. If the points made here are correct, then the CT-informed therapist
might in numerous cases wrongly infer the existence of a corresponding internally
represented propositional content and severely misunderstand the meaning of the
patient’s report. At least in some situations, the excessive focus on thoughts as
mental representations and the neglect of situational and bodily dimensions may
preclude a precise understanding of what the patient is saying.
Importantly, what I have said in this section entails no knock-down argument
against the general idea that thinking may involve mental representations. The
points I have put forward are compatible with the view that in some cases mental
representations are indeed constitutive of our thinking.8 But they also show that in
8
For additional support for the arguments made here we could draw on recent discussions in the
philosophy of cognitive science, where non-representationalist approaches to cognition are increasingly
popular (Keijzer 1998; Hutto 1999; Wheeler 2005; Gallagher 2005; Dreyfus 2004; Varga in press). Non-
representationalist arguments often draw on continental phenomenology and find support by empirical,
cognitive-scientific cognition. But we might also consider a possible objection the CT theorist might use,
inspired by representationalist replies to the non-representationalist challenge. Could the CT theorist not
relax her main claim and argue that CT merely provides ‘inferences to the best explanation’ about
subpersonal phenomena? To see why this strategy is not available for the CT theorist, we have to recall
that CT is not merely explanation oriented, but aims to change cognitive and emotional phenomena.
Therefore, CT has to assume that automatic thoughts and schemas are not subpersonal, but accessible to
consciousness.
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order to secure a precise understanding of the report of the patient, the CT

assumption that automatic thoughts are internally represented in a way that we can
‘catch’ them must be corrected. In order to see whether this is possible, we need to
ask: is it the case that CT needs to (is logically compelled to) assume the view?
Does CT need maintain that all ‘thinking’ is reducible to ‘having thoughts’? In
short, nothing of what I have said implies that CT is logically compelled to
subscribe to such hard-nosed representational view. Thus, CT could in principle
choose to relax this view significantly, maintaining that only thinking only
sometimes involves the representation of propositional content. However, without
further arguments, this move would also render CT question begging. If the CT-
informed therapist cannot assume that thoughts involve the representation of
propositional content, then more needs to be said as to how she would pick out the
‘right’ automatic thoughts. At this point, I can only gesture towards a solution,
which I see as connected to more focus on interpretation. What the formula ‘I think/
thought that P’ really means, whether it involves representation of propositional
content, and whether ‘thinking’ is applied in an expressive, explanatory, or
transparent manner will to a large extent first become intelligible if the whole
communicative situation, the context, the tone of voice, and bodily language is
taken into account. In other words, accommodating the criticism would require that
CT put more emphasis on interpretation.
3.2 Words are the Vehicles of Thought
Different versions of the idea that thinking occurs in a kind of ‘inner speech’ involving
words are not unfamiliar in philosophy.9 In CT, the claim that ‘thinking’ involves
representations is paired with the idea that that symbols like words and propositions are
the vehicles of a person’s thought. Recall that in CT, cognition is understood in terms of
an ongoing ‘‘internal conversation,’’ ‘‘inner speech,’’ or as a ‘‘running commentary’’ to
experience (see 3.1). Thoughts are described as involving ‘‘self-talk sentences’’ that are
consciously accessible (Gilson et al. 2009; Riskind 2006). It is on such a background
assumption that CT-theorists instruct practitioners to convey to their patients that it is of
utmost importance to recognize and capture the ‘‘precise wording of their automatic
thoughts’’ (Beck and Alford 2009, 311; Beck 1995, 16 and 88).
In order to assess the accuracy of the assumption that all thinking involves words,
we may draw on several sources. First, we may draw on empirical findings to
counter the phenomenological claim in CT about actual words or images that go
through a thinking person’s mind. In several studies, Hurlburt and Heavey (Hurlburt
1990, 1993; Heavey and Hurlburt 2008; Hurlburt and Heavey 2002; 2004; Hurlburt
and Akhter 2008) demonstrate that we frequently think in an unsymbolized manner,
9
For instance, Gilbert Ryle refers to thinking as ‘‘internal monologue or silent soliloquy’’ (Ryle 1949,
28), while Plato writes that ‘‘the soul when thinking appears to me to be just talking—asking questions of
herself and answering them, affirming and denying. … I say, then, that to form an opinion is to speak, and
opinion is a word spoken, - I mean, to oneself and in silence, not aloud or to another…’’ Recently,
Carruthers (1996, 50–51, 2009) has subscribed to a related view maintaining both that ‘‘thoughts occur in
the form of imaged conversations’’ and that we have introspective access to them. However, in his
account, Carruthers also reserves a place for the so-called ‘mentalese’.
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entertaining thoughts that do not include words or propositions.10 This is further

sustained by ontogenetic considerations about, on the one hand, the acquisition of
concepts and words, and thinking on the other. It seems relatively straightforward
that in order to learn a language, the young child must be able to reflect on and
hypothesize about the meanings and correct applications of the words that she hears.
To be able to achieve this, however, the child needs to be able to possess certain
concepts and entertain thoughts. This conceptual point is supported by empirical
evidence showing that thinking and the possession of concepts precede the
acquisition and mastery of words (Hespos and Spelke 2004; Bloom 2000a, b).
Still, a CT theorist could counter this in several ways. One way would be to argue
that these mainly phenomenologically-based findings miss the target because
positing that words are the vehicles of thoughts is a theoretical matter about
subpersonal phenomena. But this objection would fail, because CT needs to assume
that the relevant mechanisms are available for conscious thought.
A second, and more successful, way would be to argue that these empirical
results are in principle compatible with CT. CT could simply relax its claim, and
maintain that not all, but in a good deal of cases, words are involved in our thinking.
This move would as such not be devastating for CT, but it would introduce further
insecurities. CT would have to specify whether and why automatic thoughts belong
to the realm of thinking that involves representing propositional content. Also, given
that CT maintains that patients have to learn to identify automatic thoughts, it would
have to be clarified how the patient would identify thoughts that involve words and
further distinguish between automatic and non-automatic ones. However, there is
another critical problem that is more damaging to CT. I want to argue that even if
we assume that the patient reliably identifies automatic thoughts involving words,
we need to distinguish between those cases in which these words have a constitutive
or merely an accompanying role. As I will show in the following, while the
constitutive story is very difficult to establish, it is nevertheless the one that CT both
assumes and needs to assume.
3.2.1 Words: Constitutive or Accompanying Role?
Consider the following example. Our cab driver is a rather unorganized man, who
often forgets to lock the door of his car in spite of knowing that the city he lives in
has exceptionally high rates of car theft. Both his employer and his wife have
unsuccessfully warned him several times that if he continues his forgetful habit, it is
only a matter of time until he will have his car stolen. One day, returning to the car
10
In these studies, normal subjects wore a paging device, which would randomly ‘‘beep’’ throughout the
day. Somewhat similar to patients in a CT informed therapy session, the subjects participating in these
studies were asked to stop and record the thoughts that they had during the activation of the device. What
subjects report is that besides inner speech and visual imagery, they also experience unsymbolized but
determinate thoughts - such as wondering whether or not to purchase a particular item in a supermarket -
in the absence of any visual imagery or inner speech (Heavey and Hurlburt 2008, 802). Moreover, the
authors have detected a significant negative correlation between inner speech and unsymbolized thinking.
This means that individuals have a relatively stable propensity towards different thinking patterns. Those
who report frequent cognitive activity in which words and proposition constitute the vehicles of their
thoughts have at the same time relatively few instances of unsymbolized thinking.
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park from his lunch break, the unlocked car is gone. The first thought that comes to
his mind is, ‘I had that coming’.
Now, the first issue I want to demonstrate with this example is that it is difficult
to tell whether the proposition involved (the resounding words ‘I had that coming’)
can be said to constitute the cab driver’s thinking. When the thought resounds, he
may likely be imagining telling the episode to his wife or employer. In that case, it is
questionable whether the resounding words ‘I had that coming’ are the indispensible
vehicles of his thought. But in case he is imagining himself speaking, then the
resounding words have an accompanying role, simply adding a meta-level to his
thinking (see Davies 1998). This would be both consistent with the conceptual
analysis presented earlier (3.1) and also with the view that words and language are
not necessary for thought, but only for meta-level thought (Smith 1998, 407). The
point is that without further evidence, there is no obvious reason to assume that the
resounding words constitute his thinking.
In support of this, one may make a stronger argument: when the cab driver
‘hears’ himself inwardly uttering ‘I had that coming’ we cannot even securely
assume that he is aware of a genuine mental episode of thinking. Byrne (2011, 115)
compares inwardly and outwardly uttered sentences and argues that the ‘‘outer
utterance is not itself an episode of thinking, but something produced by such an
episode; likewise, if there were (…) an inner utterance it wouldn’t be an episode of
thinking either.’’ Thus, using Byrne’s idea, we could argue that what the cab driver
is really aware of when he ‘hears’ himself inwardly uttering ‘I had that coming’ is
not the thinking process itself, but rather its product. Byrne’s reflections usefully
complement the arguments presented earlier, but his position is stronger than the
one I am trying to defend. While he subscribes to the view that inwardly-uttered
words cannot be taken to constitute the vehicles of thought, Byrne seems to deny
that they can be parts of the thinking itself. My suggestion is more modest,
maintaining that at least in some of those cases in which words resound in our
heads, the words in question only play an accompanying role in our thinking, rather
than constituting it.11 Also, I am not claiming that it cannot be clarified whether a
resounding thought has an accompanying or constitutive role. Rather, the point is
that it would take exactly the kind of (not insignificant) interpretative effort that CT
wants to avoid (see more on direct versus interpretative retrieval in 3.3).
A CT theorist might reply that it does not really matter whether the resounding
thought constitutes or merely accompanies thinking. She might remind us that what
really matters is that these thoughts are generated by a (negative) schema and that
they can be used to detect that schema. Nonetheless, this objection is not entirely
convincing. If one assumes that the resounding thought in question merely
accompanies thinking, then it is doubtful whether it would necessarily or even just
reliably reveal underlying schemas. Here is why.
11
The view that thinking does not necessarily involve words is less bold than the idea that not all
thinking may involve concepts. The latter view has been put forward by Bermudez (2003), emphasizing
non-conceptual processes of representation that are not constrained by the range of concepts possessed by
the cognitive agent. Similarly, Evans (1982) has written about the possibility that cognitive activity may
involve non-conceptual content.
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176 S. Varga
Let us imagine that our cab driver felt depressed and consulted a CT-informed
therapist. When talking about the episode when his car was stolen, the therapist asks
him ‘What went through your mind?’ He replies: ‘I had that coming.’ Now let us
assume that the words in question (we are now assuming that they resound) play a
merely accompanying and not constitutive role. The difficulty we then face is as
follows: If the resounding thought only accompanies thinking, for example, if he is
thinking by imagining himself speaking about the episode, then it is an instantiation
of thinking that is located at a ‘higher’ level of thought, and the connection to an
underlying schema becomes more uncertain. Put differently, it then becomes
implausible to think that the thought necessarily (or even reliably) reveals or reflects
an underlying schema. So in order to avoid potential misunderstandings, and to
maximize the reliability of the CT therapist’s judgment, it is safer if the therapist
only infers an underlying schema in cases in which the resounding thought has a
constitutive role.
3.3 We have Direct Access to our Thoughts
Besides the CT conjecture about the vehicles of thought, the idea that patients can
‘‘catch’’ (Beck; JS Beck) the precise wording of their automatic thoughts relies on
an additional assumption. That is, the assumption about a vehicle of thought is
complemented by an assumption about access to our thoughts. Recall that the
patient is instructed not to interpret, but to simply observe introspectively and report
the actual words that go through her mind. This is something that patients usually
have to get used to: ‘‘Until they have learned to recognize these thoughts, many
patients report interpretations, which may or may not reflect the actual thoughts’’
(Beck 1995, 88 emphasis in original). This, however, relies on the assumption that
we must have direct (unmediated, non-interpretative) introspective access to our
thoughts. If the claims and recommendations of CT are coherent, then CT has to
rely on the assumption that by introspection we can bring our thoughts into
awareness directly—that is, unaltered, ‘unpolluted’ by any process of interpretation.
To be clear, the point is not that CT assumes that there are completely ‘unpolluted’
thoughts. Evidently, CT maintains that thoughts are ‘polluted,’ namely by the
underlying schemas. My point is, rather, that CT assumes that the introspective
retrieval brings thoughts into awareness ‘unpolluted’ by any additional process of
interpretation.
One major flaw in the assumption of direct access is that it neglects the authority
and agency that we entertain towards our mental states. When we bring aspects of
our mental life to consciousness, we are not merely something like an expert witness
of our mental states. Rather, the identity of a given inner entity depends on our
interpreting it by applying conceptual and descriptive resources—a process that
involves a ‘‘stance of agency’’ (Moran 2001, 4; 42). Bringing into play both the
issue of the constituting agency of the person and the dynamic relation between
first-person reflection and mental life, Moran (2001, 28) shows that acquiring
knowledge of our inner life is not a perception-like and relatively neutral epistemic
undertaking of an expert witness, but a process that has specific, formative
consequences for the object of introspective retrieval. In such a process, we do not
123
merely report, but, rather, shape (‘pollute’) and sometimes co-constitute the state in
question. Thus, in those cases in which answering the question ‘Do you think that
P?’ involves an introspective process, the introspection shapes and alters the content
in question (Moran 2001, 40).12 Mental states are far from being independent and
stable entities that await introspective discovery. Rather, they are ‘polluted’ by
introspection as mental states are dynamically intertwined with our first-personal
agency.13
The CT theorist might object that I am attributing a view to CT that is stronger
than what it needs to assume.14 She could relax the claim and concede that there is
always some kind of interpretation involved. She could argue that CT only needs to
assume that introspective reports of the patient can sometimes, or in principle
truthfully reflect how the patient feels. However, this would be too imprecise. Recall
that according to CT, affective states (how the patient feels) do not necessarily
reflect the underlying schemas. While it is important to know how the patient feels,
bear in mind that in CT, it is not so much the way the person is feeling that is taken
to reveal insight about the schemas. Rather, and crucially, CT maintains that it is the
automatic thoughts (which cause the emotions) that really offer the relevant insight.
Therefore, the CT theorist must embrace more than the simple and trivial claim that
introspective reports can sometimes accurately reflect how a person is feeling.
There is, however, another way in which the CT theorist could acknowledge the
role of interpretation and relax the relevant claim. She could argue that CT only
needs to assume that introspective reports of the patient can sometimes, or in
principle, truthfully reflect the patient’s automatic thoughts. There is something
right about this objection. Surely, some reports are more accurate than others. But
this is also a quite substantial concession that introduces significant uncertainties
into the therapeutic setting. How is the patient or the therapist to decide whether a
report is more ‘direct’ in the sense of involving a minimal amount of interpretation?
Given such insecurities, under what circumstances is it warranted to infer an
underlying schema? Thus, while it is in principle possible for the CT theorist to
concede the role of interpretation and relax the relevant claim, this would be bought
at relatively high price.
12
It should be noted that Moran’s view of first-personal agency is weaker than constitutivist views, such
as the one defended by Crispin Wright.
13
Of course, this goes for both symbolized and unsymbolized thought. But it is even more
straightforward that we cannot be said to have direct access to our unsymbolized thoughts. Carruthers
(2009) has criticised Hulburt’s understanding, suggesting that ‘‘when prompted by the beep, subjects turn
their mindreading systems on their own behavior and circumstances …, often enough interpreting
themselves as entertaining a specific thought.’’ The point that Carruthers tries to convey is that
unsymbolized thoughts are in the periphery of our awareness in a way that making sense of them
necessarily involves some kind of self-interpretation. But independent of Carruthers’ point—which
depends on a certain conceptualization of the mind—it does seem rather unproblematic to hold that since
neither the content nor the vehicles of unsymbolized thinking are of propositional nature, our
communicating their content will always be indirect, involving some kind of ‘translation’ into words and
propositions. Of course, none of this commits me to the idea that we do not have a direct or unmediated
understanding of our unsymbolized thoughts. The point so far is merely that our communicating their
content will always be indirect.
14
I thank an anonymous reviewer for putting forward this objection.
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178 S. Varga
3.4 Cognitions Cause and/or Constitute Emotions
After having considered the assumptions of CT that relate to the topics of cognition,
mental representation and introspection, the focus of the remaining part of this
section will be on cognition and emotions. The first point that I shall make is that
CT subscribes to a general cognitivist view of emotions, which explains the emotion
by attitudes directed at a proposition, while bodily feelings are in no way essential
(see de Sousa 2010). A central assumption of CT is that emotional disturbances like
feelings of guilt, anxiety, and despair in depression can be traced back to a specific
constellation of thoughts and beliefs. Within the general view of depression as a
‘‘disorder of thought’’ (Beck and Alford 2009, 208, 239), it is possible to identify in
CT both the claim (a) that thoughts, beliefs, or judgments cause emotions and
(b) that they constitute emotions.
(a) As to the causal claim, Beck and Alford explicitly maintain that the affective
disturbance, in such forms as low mood and anxiety is ‘‘the consequence’’ of
cognitive activity (Ibid., 231): ‘‘the typical depressive affects are evoked by the
erroneous conceptualizations’’ (Ibid., 209). In all, ‘‘there is primarily a disorder of
thought with resultant disturbance affect and behaviour in consonance with the
cognitive distortions’’ (Beck and Alford 2009, 208). While it is indisputably the case
that sometimes emotions are caused by cognitive activity, the CT picture on
causation is too crude. First, we must remember that non-cognitive causal factors
can trigger emotions. For instance, anxiousness can be caused by an excessive
consumption of beverages that are rich in caffeine, just as feeling sad may be the
outcome of consuming alcohol or fatigue (Prinz 2004). Second, given the enormous
amount and variety of processes covered by the term ‘cognition’, it is rather obvious
that not every token cognitive activity is necessarily efficacious. It is possible to
hold a relevant belief or judgment while not being in the matching emotive state
(Robinson 2005, 26). The cab driver may believe that leaving the car unlocked is
dangerous, while not fearing that the car might be stolen. Third, even in the case of
causally efficacious cognitive activity, the picture is much more complex than what
is depicted in CT. For instance, the same judgment with the same propositional
content may sometimes generate anger, but sometimes anxiety or sorrow, or even a
dispassionate shrug of the shoulders. In all, the CT claim that affective disturbances
are caused by cognitive activity is very problematic.
(b) A CT defender may object and argue that CT does not really need the causal
account for its aims. Instead, it only has to claim that emotions are constituted by
thoughts, beliefs, or judgments. According to the view that emotions are constituted
by thoughts, beliefs, or judgments, the anger I feel toward a friend of mine simply is
the judgment that he has wronged me, while my embarrassment is identical with my
judgment of being in an awkward situation (Solomon 1976, 187; Neu 2000;
Nussbaum 2001; Marks 1982).15 Subscribing to the constitutional view, the CT
theorist may claim that if emotions are constituted by thoughts, beliefs, or
15
Of course, some positions are slightly more complicated. For instance, in order to be able to attribute
emotions to infants and animals, Nussbaum (2001) allows for some propositions to be ‘preverbal.’
However, this redefinition may result in a very vague concept of propositions (de Sousa 2004).
123
judgments, then modification in the judgment will ipso facto generate a change of
emotion.16 The CT theorist could argue that the constitution view would be
consistent with the CT idea that clients should be corrected when describing their
experiences by using ‘I feel’ Beck et al. (1979), 37). Therapists are instructed to
help patients ‘translate’ ‘I feel’ into ‘I think’ or ‘I believe’ (Beck et al. 1979; Beck
1995; Beck and Alford 2009). For example, the patient might say: ‘‘So, during the
course of the day, driving into work, being at work, I was just in a nervous state. Not
in extreme panic, but just in a nervous state. A feeling of, like, ‘I don’t know if I
want to stay here or if I want to go’’’ (Scott et al. 1991, 18). The therapist answers
and ‘translates’ the patient’s report into a cognitive vocabulary: ‘‘You had automatic
thoughts like ‘I don’t know if I want to go or stay at work’?’’ (Ibid., 18).
There are several ways in which the CT theorist could flesh out a constitutive
view (see Debes 2009). The strongest version holds that emotions both are
evaluative judgments (reductive identity) and that they are type-identifiable by the
content of those judgments or beliefs. Slightly less strong, she could claim that
emotions are both essentially constituted (though not exhausted) by evaluative
judgments or beliefs and type-identifiable by the content of those judgments or
beliefs. In the weakest version, she could claim that emotions are essentially
constituted (though not exhausted) by evaluative judgments or beliefs, though
without being differentiated by their ‘cognitive’ contents.
As I see it, CT only needs to assume the weakest version of the constitution
view—a move that would save it from a great deal of problems. CT may thus grant
that emotions are not necessarily type-identifiable by the evaluative, propositional
component involved, or that the emotion is identical with or exhausted by the
evaluative component (for a critique see Ben-Ze’ev 2004; Goldie 2000). Nonethe-
less, the weakest view is also vulnerable to severe criticism. One very simple
problem for this view is that possessing particular judgments is neither necessary
nor sufficient for having an emotional state (Stocker and Hegeman 1992; Tappolet
2003).17 In other words, it is possible to be in an emotional state without holding the
relevant judgment. For instance, feelings of fear toward some object do not
necessarily involve assenting to the object being dangerous (Goldie 2000; Ben-
Ze’ev 2000; Elster 2003). In addition, the body of work on ‘affect programs’ by
psychologists like P. Ekman and R.B. Zajonc and philosophers like DeLancey
16
Matthew Ratcliffe has righty pointed out (personal communication) that CT does not actually need to
commit to the strong cognitivist view that beliefs precede emotions and that emotions are themselves
cognitive states. Instead, it could maintain that emotions entail evaluations, but resist the final assumption
that these evaluations are judgments (or beliefs involving propositional content), and settle with the view
that changes in belief can influence emotions. However, while this would indeed be an alternative, it is
nevertheless not endorsed in CT. A speculative answer as to why, could be that it would weaken the
positions of CT. But also, even if CT theorists would take this option, CT would still be susceptible to the
rest of the criticism in this paper.
17
Additionally, research in neuroscience indicates that affective responses can and do operate prior to
and without the involvement of cognitive processing. Emotions can be experienced without cognitive
processing and they actively influence such processes (LeDoux 1996; Damasio 1994/2006; 1999). In this
context, ‘cognition’ is taken to denote thinking activity, and not merely simply any processing of
information about the world (which would include perception). Such evidence is in contradiction with the
assumption of a cognitivist view of emotions in which changes in belief precede emotional changes.
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180 S. Varga
(2002), D’Arms and Jacobson (2003) and Prinz (2004) contains substantial evidence
about the automated and non-cognitive nature of emotional response systems. Thus,
even the weakest notion of the constitution view is susceptible to substantial
criticism.
The issues raised in (a) and (b) have implications for our context. For instance, a
client reports about her horrible day at work where she suffered feelings of
inferiority and constantly felt outperformed by her co-workers. When asked what
she was thinking, her answer is ‘I felt so stupid and worthless.’ Typically, the
therapist would correct her, and encourage her to say instead ‘I thought I was stupid
and worthless,’ either because this thought is regarded as causing or as constituting
the emotional experience.18 However, given that thoughts need not necessarily stand
in either causal or constitutional relation to emotional states, this patient’s emotional
experience does not have to involve her thinking that she is stupid and worthless.
But if this is right, the strategy might be misleading and lastly ineffective. First, it
may be misleading to persuade the patient to switch to using cognitive vocabulary.
For example, it may very well be that the utterance ‘I felt so stupid and worthless’ is
expressive (in the sense defined in 3.1 and thus not a report) and conveys a
confusing emotional experience that she underwent. In that case, her original
description is the more accurate one, and the correction may take her further away
from the original experience. Second, in cases of this type, the ‘translation’ into a
cognitive vocabulary and the attempt to neutralize the relevant thought is unlikely to
be effective and result in relief.
It is important to emphasize that nothing I have said entails denying that
cognitions may cause or constitute certain emotions and emotions disturbances.
Sometimes this may very well be the case. However, in order to make out whether
this is the case, it is of utmost importance to provide a more profound interpretation
of the reports, taking into account a variety of contextual elements. This adds to the
complexity of the interpretational task as (very roughly) laid out in Sect. 3.1.
3.5 Cognitive Schemas Constitute the ‘Fundament’ of our Thinking
Cognitive theory rightly maintains that experience does not take place in a world
that is neutrally disclosed, but in one where we always already are anchored by our
cognitive schemas—stored bodies of fundamental, background beliefs that interact
with the incoming information and shape and frame experience (Beck and Alford
2009, 255; Williams et al. 1997). The schemas constitute the tacit background of
experience and the framework of intentional experience. What CT also says is that
in depression-prone individuals this interpretive framework is unrealistically
negatively biased, resulting in catastrophic interpretations of an occurring situation.
At the same time, the relevant schema rationalizes the catastrophic interpretation.
Thus far, this idea calls into mind Wittgenstein’s work on certainty and ‘‘hinge-
propositions’’ (Wittgenstein 1969). He famously argued that at the fundament of our
18
Beck (et al. 1979, 37) specifically emphasizes that clients should be corrected when describing their
experiences by using ‘I feel’. Rather, therapists are instructed to help patients ‘translate’ ‘I feel’ into ‘I
think’ or ‘I believe’ (Beck et al. 1979; Beck 1995; Beck and Alford 2009).
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world-relation, there are certain types of beliefs (hinge-propositions), which make

up a rather permanent backdrop of certainty (Ibid., §115, 150, 283, 472–477) that
even skeptics must rely on. What is special about these beliefs is that they do not
always rely on justification by other beliefs: they are immediately warranted,
epistemically basic, and the certainty we connect to them does not stem from their
role within our framework of beliefs.
However, discussing Wittgenstein’s use of the term ‘hinge-proposition’ also
sheds light on some of the challenges that the idea of cognitive schemas face.
Looking closer on Wittgenstein’s hinge-propositions reveals that these are not
clearly propositional and belief-like as other beliefs,19 and, therefore, some argue
that hinge-propositions are linked to and embedded in practice (Moyal-Sharrock
2003; Varga 2012). The background that frames everyday experience and the
realness that usually characterizes experience is not merely grounded in beliefs but,
rather, in our practical relation to the world revealed in our patterns of actions.
While hinge-propositions on this interpretation are themselves embedded in
something more fundamental, we might start suspecting an analogous case with
cognitive schemas. While the level of practice is undoubtedly a part of the
background of experience and thinking, what I want to add here is that cognitive
schemas are also embedded in tacit background emotions. As we shall see, for an
adequate understanding of the activation pattern of cognitive schemas, we need to
take into account this embeddedness.
3.5.1 Background Emotions
Very roughly, background emotions are inconspicuous background states that are
less intense then what we usually consider as moods (Damasio 1999, 341; Lane and
Nadel 2000; Ratcliffe 2005; 2008).20 As with being in a mood, we only have a
subtle awareness of a background emotion, but when prompted, we are usually able
to report on its quality instantly. Matthew Ratcliffe has provided an excellent
phenomenological study of such subtle emotions that include the feeling of ‘being
on top of things’, ‘being strong and full of energy’, ‘being in danger’, or ‘being
distant and cut off from the world’ (Ratcliffe 2005, 2008, 2010).
These emotions not only colour our experience, but have far more important roles
to play. Similar to the way in which Martin Heidegger has famously described
moods, they disclose to us our ‘Being-in-the-world as a whole’ and create
frameworks of significance that structure our experience and make it possible for us
to direct ourselves towards something (Heidegger 1963, 172). Such tacit
background states bestow the world with a sense of practical significance. Roughly,
one may say that these fundamental emotions frame experience and provide an
affective background orientation by constituting a space of significant possibilities
that ‘afford’ certain actions. For instance, the subtle feelings of ‘being on top of
19
Some of his examples are not propositional, like the certainty of the sense of ownership of body parts.
20
As Damasio (1994/2006) has expressed it, a background feeling ‘‘is not the Verdi of grand emotion,
nor the Stravinsky of intellectualized emotion but rather a minimalist in tone and beat, the feeling of life
itself, the sense of being.’’
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182 S. Varga
things’, or ‘being in danger’ may have us in its grip to the extent that it permeates
the cognitive and evaluative aspects of our experience (Ratcliffe 2005, 2008). Such
background emotions structure the pool of meaningful possibilities and shape
practical comportment. Somebody feeling ‘on top of things’ will have a propensity
towards holding certain beliefs about herself and the world, for instance, seeing
herself invincible and the world as a place in which her plans can be effortlessly
realized. But in addition to such an ‘orienting’ role, Damasio (1994) points out that
background emotions also enable the proper functioning of cognitive and
deliberative skills. He draws on neurological phenomena that cannot be fully
explained within the traditional framework that assigns primacy to cognitive
approaches. One of Damasio’s conclusions is that background emotions constitute
something like the context in which cognition takes place.
Drawing on Damasio’s work, Matthew Ratcliffe has argued that background
emotions are essentially embodied, which also means that the way the body feels
and how the world is experienced (as the inhabited space of possibilities) are not
two different things, but rather two inextricable aspects of the same experiential
structure (Ratcliffe 2005, 49; also Drummond 2004, 115).21 The space of possibility
for experience is constituted by bodily potentialities, so that an altered feeling in the
body is at the same time a change in the space of possibility.22 For instance, the
background emotion ‘feeling low’ is both characterized by the way in which the
world appears, namely as lacking attractive ‘affordances,’ and the way the body
feels: slow and heavy. Meier and Robinson (2005) have found empirical evidence
that supports such a view. On the basis of these results, referencing a study of simple
vertical selective attention tasks, they argue that emotional states like ‘‘feeling
down’’ are intrinsically linked to specific bodily postures (like ‘‘looking down’’).23
The most important point emerging here is that embodied background emotions
are not just adding some emotional color to objects that are already present through
21
At this point we depart from Damasio’s theory—one that only acknowledges the role of the body in
the form of somatic markers. Many have critiqued this view for thinking in dualistic terms and separating
mental and somatic aspects, and for envisaging emotions as representational events taking place in the
brain (Spackman and Miller 2008; Gallagher 2005).
22
Phenomenologists (and more recently enactivist approaches to cognition [Noe 2004]) have
emphasized that the lived body is not just an object of experience, it also has a decisive role in
structuring experience and the range of possibilities that we perceive. For instance, integral to
experiencing an object, there is a perceived range of salient possibilities. When looking at the laptop in
front of me, it appears as something that could be worked on and manipulated in certain ways. Such
clusters of experiential possibilities make up the ‘‘horizons’’ of objects, which are not only perceived
visually but above all feel like bodily potentialities. In the perception of an object, there is a bodily sense
of being able to reveal hidden features of the object and to be able to act upon it in various ways. So the
body is not only the matching part of ordered horizons, but also indissociable from such horizons. At the
same time, the body is of central relevance to background emotions. Its role is not exhausted by its
relation to specific horizons of possibilities of particular entities; it also relates to the ‘‘world-horizon’’ of
‘‘pre-givenness’’ that, for Husserl, allows individual entities to appear in the first place (Husserl, Hua VI,
146, 267).
23
Some additional supporting evidence can be found in the work of Lakoff and Johnson (1999) and
Johnson (1987), who suggest that emotional experiences are usually expressed by employing bodily and
spatial metaphors. It is easy to see that positive emotions typically refer to high vertical positions. When
experiencing positive emotions we tend to speak of feeling ‘up’ or ‘high’, while we speak of feeling
‘down’ or ‘low’ when undergoing negative emotion.
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cognition. Rather, they fundamentally shape cognition and tacitly structure and co-
constitute experience. Taking this seriously, we may argue that this also means that
background emotions to a certain extent constitute the framework in which the
cognitive schemas occur. This view can be additionally supported by phenomeno-
logical and empirical arguments. Let us see how.
First, this view squares easily with the relevant phenomenology. For instance,
having a background emotion that is characterized by general anxiousness towards
the world usually comes with a propensity towards holding certain basic beliefs
about oneself and the world, as vulnerable to dangers that one tends to see
everywhere. Or, more moderately, we can say that such a background emotion
amplifies those past experiences in which such vulnerability to dangers has been
confirmed. At the same time, when having such a background emotion, one is
specifically susceptible to feelings of fear that one otherwise would be able to
regulate and to hinder from guiding action. Additional evidence for the embedd-
edness of beliefs and schemas in background emotions comes from psychopathol-
ogy. Ratcliffe (2005, 2008) has argued that pathologically altered background
emotions that lack certain qualities may lead to delusional beliefs.
If this is right, then it is plausible that the background beliefs or schemas that CT
considers to cause the pathological emotional episodes are not simply ‘there’ as
brute facts regulating our inner life at the ‘fundament’ of our world-relation. Instead,
their presence and impact are themselves dependent on the background emotions
that frame them. This view is additionally confirmed by the work of Teasdale and
Barnard (1993). These authors note that one problem with the CT assumption that
vulnerability to depression depends on individuals’ underlying dysfunctional
background beliefs is that it has not been demonstrated that vulnerable individuals
remain committed to these beliefs once their depression has remitted.24 Thus, once
the patients no longer suffer from the affective disturbances in depression, the
relevant negative or dysfunctional background beliefs cease to be active or existent.
Therefore, the evidence shows that rather than being enduring characteristics of
vulnerable individuals, such beliefs are habitually mood-state dependent (Teasdale
1993; Teasdale and Barnard 1993).
If it is correct that schemas are themselves embedded in background emotions,
than this has serious consequences that CT needs to take into account. For instance,
it needs to be taken into consideration that schemas in depression may in themselves
not be dysfunctional, but rather intelligibly embedded in a particular (dysfunctional)
background emotion. In other words, their dysfunctional nature may stem from their
being embedded in a particular background emotion. But then, CT needs to
accommodate that the adequate explanation of the dysfunctional response patterns
must take into account such non-cognitive aspects.25 In addition, another
24
For a philosophical critique of their account see Charles’ 2004 paper ‘Emotion, Cognition and Action.’
25
Whiting (2006a, b) has rightly argued that there are some cases in which the explanation of
dysfunctional response patterns must be non-cognitive. He has noted that sometimes our thoughts depict
or represent the world accurately, but our emotional response is inappropriate or out of control, in which
case it may be inadequate to aim at cognitive alterations. I am making a related point here, but note that
the point of departure is very different. In each case that Whiting depicts, experience starts with
representations that then elicit certain evaluations and/or emotional responses. The view that I am
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184 S. Varga
consequence is that the therapeutic alteration of such patterns and the alleviation of
the emotional disturbance may consist in working with the (background) emotions
themselves instead of focusing on cognitions. Of course, the identification of
cognitive schemas is an important step toward mapping the cognitive landscape of
the patient, itself a vital instrument of psycho-education. However, its value is
somewhat limited if the role of background emotions is not taken into consideration.
4 Towards a More Precise CT
So far, this paper has mainly been concerned with testing the underlying
philosophical assumptions of CT, but it has also pointed out where CT needs
revision and what such revision should best entail. Such revision is likely to be
extensive. On the one hand, it would involve correcting assumptions about cognitive
processes, mental state attributions, mental representations, and background
emotions. On the other hand, it would involve paying less attention to the content
of mental representations and more to the role of interpretation. Such revision will
not only secure philosophical accuracy, but may also help provide an account that is
better suited to explain some of the cognitive, emotional, and bodily manifestations
in affective disorders. Furthermore, the revised account could still count as sort of
CT, since none of the arguments presented here deny that beliefs have an important
role to play in depressive states. Indeed, beliefs can and do contribute to sustaining
background emotions, and the fact that fundamental beliefs arise in the context of
background emotion does not mean that they cannot affect them.
In the remainder of the paper, given the constraints of space, I will make
admittedly tentative suggestions of how a corrected CT would have several
advantages and could provide the basis for a more precise understanding of patients’
utterances in a therapeutic encounter. First, upon such a correction, the bodily
aspects of depression could be accounted for in a more adequate and direct manner
(a). Second, some of the described problems that CT runs into could be avoided (b
and c). Let us see how.
(a) As noted earlier, CT is in striking contradiction with the embodied nature of
background emotions, since it regards the bodily aspects of emotions and affective
disturbances, like somatisation and motor retardation, as (at best) secondary
compared to automatic thoughts and fundamental beliefs (Beck and Alford 2009,
244). However, the bodily experience is not only an inextricable part of the emotion
itself, but sometimes it is the most salient feature of it. In that case, focusing on the
bodily changes may help reveal the background emotion that one is going through.
For instance, parallel to low moods, depressive patients often complain about motor
retardation and about general states of all-encompassing bodily uneasiness in which
the body feels object-like and conspicuous (Fuchs 2003, 2005; Ratcliffe 2009). An
Footnote 25 continued
stressing is different in that I take representation to already be imbued with an embodied background
emotion. Such a point of departure leads into a different explanation, but one that is compatible with
Whiting’s account.
123
advantage of such a changed view is that complaints about motor retardation or

bodily conspicuousness, and the tacit quality of the ‘low’ emotional experience,
need neither be understood as distinct phenomena, nor in causal terms. The
background ‘low’ emotion in which everything is permeated by a sense of
meaninglessness and lack of possibilities, and the object-like and conspicuous sense
of the body (through which we usually actualise those possibilities), may simply be
different sides of the same experience.
In the corrected view, such bodily feelings need not be distinguished from altered
experiences, and we need not say that it is beliefs formed on the basis of experiences
that slow down the body. If we understand the changed bodily feeling as a part of
the altered experience, then in some cases the emotional experience of being
irrevocably disconnected, cut off and alienated can become more conscious by
focusing on the bodily side of the experience. This may specifically apply to patients
that are more comfortable with talking about bodily disturbances rather than
emotional ones.
(b) On the background of several points throughout the paper, it seems clear that
a correction of CT would also have to involve allocating a different position for
‘automatic thoughts.’ First, as seen in Sect. 3.1., the flawed general assumption must
be abandoned that thought always involves conscious mental representation.
Besides this general point, special attention should be paid to the fact that a thought
or a belief need not be constitutive of an emotion but might simply be expressive of
it. Automatic thoughts could, in such a changed picture, be understood as
expressions of a negatively altered background emotion that makes the horizon of
possible experiences shrink into a locked atmosphere, characterized by a loss of
meaningful practical possibilities. In this case, it is clear that if the therapist seeks to
change the ‘vocabulary’ and reduce the utterance of the patient ‘I feel worthless’ to
some kind of belief, then important aspects of a complex experience are lost. ‘I feel
worthless’ might harbour a much more complex relation to self and world than
certain beliefs about the state of things. Referring to feelings might just be the most
adequate means of expression of the transformation in the overall sense of being in
the world rather than a change in belief. We have to keep in mind that such
alteration encompasses a range of subtly different predicaments and it might be
extremely difficult to convey it in terms of concrete differences in how things look.
So while CT would attempt reduce ‘I feel worthless’ to a distorted belief, in the
corrected view, the same utterance might figure as a useful characterization of the
altered background structure of experience. It may express that the world no longer
offers the usual possibilities for activity, in the sense that possibilities for interaction
that are inaccessible to the self, appear easily accessible to others. It may express
alterations in the space of possibilities that involve feelings and thoughts of
irrevocable isolation. A correct and nuanced understanding of such utterances may
also be the first step towards working with the background emotions themselves
instead of focusing on cognitions.
(c) Besides this loss, we have also seen how CT’s intention to identify automatic
thoughts and to correct and ‘translate’ affective utterances in a cognitive vocabulary
can lead to a variety of severe misunderstandings, which can be assumed to have a
negative impact on the therapeutic outcome. A common problem is that if a patient
123
186 S. Varga
is unable to identify explicit automatic thoughts resounding in her mind, the

conclusion of CT is typically that they are simply not conscious enough. This
conclusion is in striking contradiction to the patient’s awareness of her distress,
which may then lead her to seek even harder, thus increasing the chance of a false
recollection. It is already the case that due to the specific way of questioning and the
power of the therapeutic encounter, clients do at times falsely recollect automatic
thoughts (Power 2002, 2009). However, if some of the assumptions of CT are
revised in the way indicated in this paper, then the problem of falsely recollected
automatic thoughts might be reduced to a minimum.
5 Conclusion
Undeniably, the cognitive conceptualization of emotions and affective disorders has

led to a variety of theoretical, empirical, and therapeutic advances. However, given
that CT constitutes the predominant paradigm in the understanding of affective
disorders and psychotherapy, and given that the therapist more or less explicitly
educates the patient to consent to this theory (psycho-education), it is important to
assess the philosophical assumptions on which it is based. Therefore, this paper
contained the identification and the assessment of basic assumptions, relating to
philosophical issues of mental representation and introspection on the one hand
(3.1–3.3), and emotion and cognition on the other (3.4–3.5). The general conclusion
was that the philosophical basis of CT needs to be revised, and over the last pages
the attempt was undertaken to briefly sketch how this could be achieved and what
advantages a corrected view would hold. Of course, much further work is needed.
One interesting possibility to make progress would be to explore how my
suggestions could be combined with models that work with multi-level accounts of
emotion such as in Power (2009) and Power and Dalgleish (1999). In any case, the
hope is that some of these thoughts may contribute to providing a clinically useful
framework with which the emotional disorders can be understood.
Acknowledgments I would like to thank Matthew Ratcliffe, Daniel D. Hutto, George Graham, Achim
Stephan, Stephan Blatti, Remy Debes, Luvell Anderson, Shaun Gallagher, Jennifer Radden and an
anonymous referee for valuable comments and criticism.
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Erkenn (2014) 79:165–190

Cognition, Representations and Embodied Emotions:

Abstract Cognitive theory (CT) is currently the most widely acknowledged

CT is of both practical and explanatory value: ‘‘The purpose of cognitive theory is

the effectiveness of the treatment process (McEachrane 2003, 82). However, it is

2.1 Schemas and Automatic Thoughts

A central characteristic of CT is a distinction between ‘‘fundamental beliefs’’ or

3 Assessing the Underlying Assumptions of CT

After this brief outline, I want to isolate underlying assumptions on which CT is

3.1 ‘Thinking that P.’ Non-representational, Explanatory, Expressive

In the CT literature, cognition is depicted as essentially involving ‘‘internal

ourselves’’ (Sheldon 1995, 150–151). Accordingly, the automatic thoughts that

in which he experienced being in the dangerous situation, feeling frightened and

order to secure a precise understanding of the report of the patient, the CT

3.2 Words are the Vehicles of Thought

entertaining thoughts that do not include words or propositions.10 This is further

3.2.1 Words: Constitutive or Accompanying Role?

3.3 We have Direct Access to our Thoughts

3.4 Cognitions Cause and/or Constitute Emotions

3.5 Cognitive Schemas Constitute the ‘Fundament’ of our Thinking

world-relation, there are certain types of beliefs (hinge-propositions), which make

3.5.1 Background Emotions

4 Towards a More Precise CT

advantage of such a changed view is that complaints about motor retardation or

is unable to identify explicit automatic thoughts resounding in her mind, the

Undeniably, the cognitive conceptualization of emotions and affective disorders has

Ben-Ze’ev, A. (2000). The subtlety of emotions. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Dreyfus, H. L. (2004). A phenomenology of skill acquisition as the basis for a Merleau-Pontian

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