Here, on Healing Journey, among other AI therapists, you can choose Gus, Emma and Ethan to be your AI therapist. Although they are not typical representatives of any particular school, their way of thinking is close to cognitively oriented therapeutic schools. Therapeutic approaches that adhere to the cognitive-behavioral understanding are based on the assumption of the importance of cognition as a factor that influences pathology, as well as a factor that the therapist uses to achieve the desired change. The assumption is that cognitive activity influences behavior, that activity can be observed and changed, and that the desired change can be achieved through changes in cognition, or thinking.
People’s emotional and behavioral reactions are strongly influenced by thoughts or the meanings we attribute to events or our own behavior. People tend to think that events or other people are what make them happy, angry, sad, and so on. However, between these events and our reactions lies an assessment, an interpretation of those events. This means that we do not react to events, but to the meanings we attribute to them. If events directly caused feelings in people, then every event would cause exactly the same feeling in every person. We know that this is not the case, and this is because each person has their own personal interpretation of events.
Thoughts are the most important factor that shapes our feelings, dysfunctional thoughts are what form dysfunctional feelings, or suffering. Therefore, the best way to deal with suffering is to change dysfunctional thoughts. In addition to interpreting the phenomena around us, it is also important what significance we attach to them, or how much these phenomena affect us. Let's take the following event as an example:
"My boyfriend is quiet today."
It is an objective phenomenon. We can attribute some meaning to it, for example:
"He is no longer interested in me."
We can also attribute some significance to that meaning, for example:
"The fact that he is no longer interested in me is terrible."
Some therapeutic approaches are more concerned with meaning, while others are more concerned with the significance we attach to phenomena around us but the path to problem solving usually starts with cognition.