Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In Italy, Guidano and Liotti (1983) proposed a new model defined as cognitivistic-
postrationalist (Guidano 1987, 1991; Liotti 1991, 2001, 2005) to indicate “the relevant
modification in the conceptualization of change and in the therapeutic methodology
respect to the rationalist perspective” (Guidano 1991, p. 91). According to Guidano's
cognitivistic-postrationalist perspective, knowledge is not intended as the result of the
cognitive activity of the mind; rather, it is constructed by the mind on the basis of emo-
tional intelligence. Logical and rational processing would be activated starting from a
matrix of sensations and actions and would structure beliefs and thoughts, meanings, and
explications functionally coherent to the emotional intelligence.
Guidano and Liotti derive their arguments not only from cognitive psychology but
also from attachment theory, from developmental epistemology and ethology, and from
other clinical theories and approaches. Afterward, thanks to the contribution offered by
the theories of complexity and by the second cybernetics as well as that offered by “the
theory of knowledge,” systemized and developed principally by Maturana and Varela
(1980, 1987), Guidano (1987, 1991) states an important epistemological principle: There is no
reality or universe valid for everybody, but only a multiverse reality actively constructed
by the observer according to rules that ensure identity, uniqueness, and continuity to the
individual in his or her own experiences during the lifespan (von Glasersfeld 1984).
Further developments in the theory are tied to the importance attributed to knowledge
construction, the concept of the self-organizing system and the principles that regulate its
equilibrium (von Bertalanffy 1968; Maturana and Varela 1980, 1987; von Foerster 1984; Bocchi
and Ceruti 1985), the use of language and narration (Bruner 1990), and the individual history,
particularly of childhood attachment (Bowlby 1979, 1988) and emotional experiences.
The different cognitive formulations we just presented provide unavoidable spinoffs for
therapeutic practice with very different ways of considering problems, illness, treatment,
and the role of the therapist, as we will see in Section 6.2.
6.2 The Cognitive Therapist
Traditional cognitive psychology, although stating that an individual's own activity is
always dependent on him or her and his or her experiences, interprets symptoms and dis-
ease as the result of an irrational and distorted belief that the therapist can modify because
the presumption is that an external rational order that is univocal and identical for all does
exist. For these reasons the traditional cognitive therapies are substantially persuasive
because they apply a “method of systematic rational restructuration” aimed at changing
“irrational beliefs” that are considered as the cause of the disease. According to the clas-
sical cognitive approach, psychological diseases stem from a set of maladjusted schemes
or models that pathologically rule information processing. These models are expressed by
automatic thoughts and conscious imagery.
In constructivist models, instead, psychopathology has two different possibilities of
generation. It may stem from an alteration of functioning of a definite organization of the
knowledge of oneself with the other one, centered on a well identifiable semantic nucleus
as in the case of meaning organizations. Otherwise it can be generated by a disconnection
between episodic and semantic knowledge of one's own self or by obstacles to the pro-
cesses transforming implicit and emotional knowledge in an explicit one of constructed
meanings about oneself and the world. These obstacles may be deficits of knowledge and
