APA 2014 Ruggiero

8/11/2019 APA 2014 Ruggiero

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The role of the Emotive andDevelopmental Components

in Cognitive Therapy in ItalyG.M. Ruggiero, S. Sassaroli

Studi Cognitivi Cognitive Psychotherapy School

Foro Buonaparte 57

20121 Milano Italy


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Cognitive therapy in Italy: mergingconstructivism and rationalism

A starting point for a reflection about the

cultural aspects behind the adoption of

cognitive therapy in Italy is a short history of

the problems that Italian therapists

historically met when dealing with the more

rationalistic aspects of cognitive therapy


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Two main features distinguished the

cognitive movement in Italy from the

beginning: The direct and strong contact with the

theory and clinical practice of Ellis rational

emotive behavior therapy (REBT)

Its integration with a cognitive -constructivist movement that arose in Italy in

the same period.


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In the 70s and 80s the major Italian

cognitively based clinicians and researchers,

such as Vittorio Guidano, Gianni Liotti, SandraSassaroli, Antonio Semerari and Francesco

Mancini merged the REBT paradigm with

constructivist and developmental models that

gave more room to emotions and personal

experience than to cognitive schemata


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Problems with the rationalistic aspects of

cognitive therapy: Science or Culture ? Italian therapists perceived the disputing

(Ellis, 1962) phase of REBT to be a toorationalistic and directive intervention.

Did this depend only on their constructivisttraining or also on a cultural trademark?


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Italian radical Constructivism The success of the constructivist approach in

Italy was largely due to the influential work of

Vittorio Guidano and Gianni Liotti, authors of aninternationally successful clinical model that

combined cognitive, behavioral, constructivist

and evolutionary elements (Guidano & Liotti,

1983; Guidano, 1987, 1991).


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Italian radical Constructivism

Guidano and Liotti (1983) devalued the concept of a shared, objective and

external truth

expressed doubts about the efficacy of real

rational disputing as a therapeutic intervention

usable in therapy.


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Italian radical Constructivism

Deep down, Guidano and Liotti did not think

that rational thinking could affect emotionalstates and behaviors (Guidano & Liotti, 1983).


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The interest in clients personal development inItalian Constructivism

In addition, Guidano and Liotti (1983), and later Liotti

alone (2001), focused on the developmental roots of

biased beliefs. In clinical terms, this meant paying more attention to

the exploration of clients personal histories, how they

developed and in what situations and with what

relational patterns they learnt their biased beliefs. Difficult relationships were thought to be predisposing

factors paving the way for a cognitive vulnerability to

emotional disorders.


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Italian cognitive therapy: more narrative andrelational and less directive

Consequently, Liotti (2001)

conceived therapy mainly as a sortof compensative relationship that

provided the client with the warmly

accepting environment that he or

she had missed during childhood


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Is there a cultural aspect in Italian

constructivism? Furthermore, even the Italian preference for

the constructivist approach may be partially

due to cultural influences.


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Is there a cultural aspect in Italian

constructivism? Are there any significant features in Italian cultureto justify the preference of Italian cognitive

therapists for:

the less rationalistic -and more constructivist-aspects of cognitive therapy

their tendency to combine REBT with a deeper

analysis of clients personal development and of the

history of their significant relationships with

affective figures during childhood and adolescence the higher importance given to the emotive and

behavioral aspects of REBT


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Defining culture Defining a countrys culture is an extremely

difficult and not frequently rewarding task

However, we cannot deny that differencesamong cultures do exist and may affect social

behaviors, including clinical practice

We choose of running the risk of unavoidable

oversimplifications and stereotypes


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Method

We chose two different strategies

for exploring the features of Italian

culture that could account for the

obstacles to the acceptance of

rationalistic and directive aspects

of cognitive therapy


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Italian philosophical tradition as a tool tounderstand Italian therapists mentality

The first strategy is an analysis of certain

aspects of Italian philosophical thought It is, of course, debatable whether a history of

the philosophical thought of a country can beused as a tool for understanding its culture


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However, in this work we explore the

intellectual behavior of a selected population:

a highly educated segment of the population

plausibly both directly and indirectly

influenced by the philosophical tradition of

their home country


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Italian philosophical tradition as a tool to understandItalian therapists mentality

Plausibly, this philosophical tradition was able

to affect the choices and preferences either

thoughtful or idiosyncratic- of the population

in question, and, consequently, the way they

adopted cognitive therapy


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Actually, there are remarkable

similarities between some specific

features of Italian philosophy and

the way Italian cognitive therapists

adopted cognitive therapy and

particularly REBT


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Method: how we explored Italian

philospphical thought We refer to the three most recent andcomprehensive collective anthologies of

Italian philosophers published in English

(Borradori, 1988; Hardt & Virno, 1996; Chiesa

& Toscano, 2009) and the brilliant review by

Roberto Esposito in Italian (2010, 2012)


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Italian philosophical and cultural distrust in the

rational handling of emotions In the founding fathers of Italian thought, namely Niccol

Machiavelli (1469-1527), Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), and

Giambattista Vico (1688-1744), there is the same lack of confidence

in the possibility of tackling emotions using rationality that

distinguishes the Italian approach to cognitive therapy.


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Italian philosophical and cultural distrust in the

rational handling of emotions These three philosophers did not believe in the possibility

of a rational order ruling or at least managing politics

(Machiavelli, 1532), human history (Vico, 1725, 1730, 1744)

or even the structure of universe (Bruno, 1584)


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Comparison between

Machiavelli and Hobbes A comparison between Machiavelli with

Thomas Hobbes -a non-Italian counterpart- is

particularly enlightening


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Comparison between Machiavelli and Hobbes

Both Machiavelli and Hobbes theorized a pessimistic and violent

vision of mankind, implying that is only the organized violence of

the Prince (Machiavelli) and of the Modern State, the so-called

Leviathan (Hobbes), that establishes social life under the rule oflaw.


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Comparison between Machiavelli andHobbes

However, in Machiavelli there is no trace of

the uncompromising contrast portrayed by

Hobbes between the emotional life of peoplein the wilderness and the moral and rational

order established by the State/Leviathan. On the contrary, in Machiavelli this tendency

towards conflict is deeply emotional and

cannot be repressed by rationality.


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Comparison between Machiavelli andHobbes

In Machiavelli the rational handling of conflict is

always temporary and never separated from

emotional life, and, moreover, it derives totally

from emotional conflict. Any attempt to build a perfect separation

between rational thought and passioni , i.e. the

motivational drive coming from emotions, isdoomed to a sterile loss of life (Esposito, pp. 45-

57).


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Giordano Bruno

Bruno proposed an astonishingly brave model of the Universe in

which there was no center (for Bruno not only the Earth, but also

the Sun was not the center), in which Space is infinite and humanreason (not coincidentally without capital letters) is not the ruling

law of the Universe but only a transient function of a particular and

transient living form: human race.


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Giambattista Vico Moreover, Vico even attempted to imagine the mental

experience of pre- human beasts ( bestioni ) in which

psychic life was totally buried under bodily perceptions. It is from this pre-linguistic experience that human reason

stems. According to Vico, rational thinking is not a structural

feature of mankind, but only a recent and acquired

product of mental activity, a mere function produced by

cultural evolution and lacking any particular structural

role


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Giambattista Vico: Poetic wisdom as NewScience

Giambattista Vicos New Science begins with an

image, a frontispiece which Vico placed there so that

the reader could recollect, at a glance, the whole

opus. Mankind needs poetic wisdom (represented by

Homer receiving the light of providence as reflected

by metaphysics). Without poetic wisdom the mankind cannot ascend

to Truth.


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Other Italian thinkers Similar themes are present in other Italian thinkers:

the historian Vincenzo Cuoco (1770-1823);

the novelist Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873), particularly in the tragic report of a case

of injustice Storia della Colonna Infame (History of the Infamous Column );

the poet Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) in whose marvelous little book Operette

Morali ("Small Moral Works") (1830-1979) this pessimistic conception probably reaches

the most perfect expression;

the idealistic philosophers Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875-

1944);

the political thinker Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937);

the philosophers Gianni Vattimo (1936-) and Emanuele Severino (1929-);


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Italian culture as defined by its

social life Although it is admittedly possible to ascribe aparticular character to Italian philosophy, it remains

unclear how much these philosophical features arealso present among the Italian people.

Generalizations are always difficult, given not least the

great cultural differences between Italian regions.


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Italian culture as defined by its social life

Using Hofstedes multi-factorial model of cultural studies

(Hofstede, 2002), we can find in Italian society: distrust toward impersonal procedures; confidence in emotional and relational bounds; tendency to conceive conflicts as an unavoidable aspect of

social life;


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Italian culture and cognitive therapy: bridges,not only walls

We think that all the above-mentioned

aspects of Italian philosophical thought and

social culture help explain the way cognitive

therapy, and particularly REBT, was adopted

and disseminated among the Italian

cognitive-behavioral therapist community


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The contribution of the Italian

cognitive movement However, in this final section we

pose the question whether Italian

culture not only created obstacles

but have encouraged a particular

attention to REBTsconstructivist

and meta-emotional aspects.


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The contribution of the Italian cognitivemovement

It is also true that Italian therapists keenly appreciated REBTs

meta-emotional aspects. In REBT this meta- level is generally called secondary problem. This secondary problem is a vicious circle in which the client has a

biased negative belief towards his or her own mental states. Many Italian cognitive clinicians and theorists think that all

emotional disorders are, in fact, always generated by a secondaryprocess (Lorenzini & Sassaroli, 1987; De Silvestri, 1989; Mancini,

1990).


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The contribution of the Italian

cognitive movement We can see a parallel with the historical distrust of Italian thought

and culture in the capacity of the mind to handle emotional life

using the tool of rational thinking. Consequently, the only available instrument is a meta-cognitive

level in which emotions are recognized and regulated but never

really directly controlled (Caselli, 2013). It is not concidental that Dryden (an important REBT theorist)

called the secondary problem meta -emotional problem (2011, p.

70).


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Italian americans and Italian

culture Although my knowledge of the workof Italian americans colleagues is still

beginning, I would suggest that alsoin some american colleagues of Italian

ascendancy we can find the same

interest towards emotional life and

interpersonal conflicts.


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Italian americans

Raymond DiGiuseppes studies about anger Bernardo Carduccis researches about shyness Philip Zimbardo work about the social roots of

evil Anthony Sciolis studies on hope Ralph Piedmont studies about spirituality

Elisabeth Messinas reflections on socialstigma


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the Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci symbolizesthe Italian scientific passion for exploring emotions

Documents

APA 2014 Ruggiero