Radical Behaviourist v Cognitive Psychology: a Pseudo-Quarrel?

Abstract

Data on the results of cognitive therapies and theoretical models to explain them are proliferating. Yet from the current state of the evidence it is clear that we have as yet been furnished far more richly with questions than answers. Watts (1977) has indicated some of the issues remaining. What relationship has cognitive behaviour therapy to cognitive psychology as a whole? What kind of cognitive processes is it concerned with? How should these be formulated and investigated? Can covert stimuli and behaviours be equated with overt, both functionally and formally? How far must the individual be aware of (able explicitly to discriminate and describe) covert processes? What is the use of imaginal stimuli in cognitive behaviour therapy? What kind of changes take place during it? The achievement of answers to these and related questions is more than likely to have been hindered than helped by the vituperative nature of the arguments raging between the radical behaviourist and cognitive fields.