Compass Therapy and Cognitive Therapy As Complimentary Methods

The world is richer for the Cognitive Therapy approach to life and behavior developed by Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck. These two pioneers in counseling and psychotherapy came to believe that it is the thoughts we think determine the emotions we feel.

Albert Ellis

Aaron Beck

Therefore, they reasoned, by making a client's thoughts fully conscious and examining them in the therapeutic process, the client could be free of irrational thoughts and emotional health would follow.

I am connected to these men because my colleague and mentor, Dr. Everett Shostrom, made historic videos of Ellis and Beck applying the cognitive approach in live sessions. We carefully studied these and other examples of their work.

                                                   

Everett Shostrom

Dan Montgomery

 












Shostrom and I agreed at the time that the cognitive approach has strong merits, especially because it helps clients to identify when they are magnifying negative thoughts, influenced by unexamined thoughts from childhood, or otherwise frustrating themselves and their relationships with unhealthy assumptions about life.

But even while seeing these positives of cognitive therapy, we noticed some limitations. Primarily, there is more to human nature than thinking. Thoughts are important, but so are emotions, bodily states, and spiritual values. In writing Chapter One of Raymond Corsini's book, Handbook of Innovative Therapy, we addressed this point.

Corsini introduced our chapter by saying, "One of my long term goals is to write the definitive book on psychotherapy. Everett Shostrom and Dan Montgomery beat me to it, creating a supersystem of the best of all known theories and procedures...I believe an eclectic system of this type will eventually be the therapeutic system of the future" (Wiley, 1981, 2001).

After Shostrom passed away, I carried forward our fundamental assumption that human nature is holistic and multifaceted, and therefore needs a multifaceted method of healing and integration.

Compass Therapy, then, brings to therapists the multifaceted lens of the Human Nature Compass, which offers Mind and Heart, Body and Spirit, much as a physical compass provides North and South, East and West.

 A latitude and longitude of the self allows you to assess whether it is a client's thoughts, feelings, biological processes, or spirituality that is contributing to problems. And you can meet those particular needs by using action techniques that intervene at cognitive, emotional, physical, or spiritual levels.

Today I see Cognitive Therapy and Compass Therapy as complementary approaches to understanding and healing clients, each making unique contributions to a therapist's versatility in meeting client needs.

For more about applying the Human Nature Compass to 

 diagnose client needs and develop treatment plans, read: 

Compass Therapy: Christian Psychology in Action