Logic-based therapy

Key takeaways

Logic-based therapy belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Logic-based therapy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Logic-based therapy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Logic-based therapy (LBT) is a modality of philosophical counseling developed by philosopher Elliot D. Cohen beginning in the mid-1980s. It is a philosophical variant of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), which was developed by psychologist Albert Ellis. A randomized, controlled efficacy study of LBT suggests that it may be effective in reducing anxiety.

Comparison to REBT According to the theory of LBT, people decide to make themselves upset emotionally and behaviorally by deducing self-defeating emotional and behavioral conclusions from irrational premises. LBT retains the theoretical base of the cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies, insofar as it contends emotional and behavioral problems to be rooted in malignant and maladaptive thought processes and patterns. LBT considers itself not only a type of philosophical counseling, but a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy. At the same time, LBT remains firmly planted in philosophy by way of the use of formal logic, informal logic, phenomenological intentionality, and philosophical antidotes in conceptualizing and treating mental disorders and psychosocial difficulties. According to classical REBT, there are three psychological points:

Point A (Activating event) Point B (Belief system) Point C (behavioral and emotional Consequence) Ellis argued that the Activating event itself (A) does not cause people to be upset (C); they require also a set of Beliefs that, in conjunction with the event, can contribute to a self-defeating behavioral and emotional Consequence. For example, it is not only the divorce (A) that causes depression (C), but also the belief that this event is awful and the worst thing that could have happened (B). Thus, according to Ellis, by finding the particular Activating event and Belief, one can find out what is causing one's depression (C). Clients can then work on changing their Belief system and their behavior to overcome the depression (C). LBT recasts REBT's A-B-C model of psychological disturbance into syllogistic logic. According to its logic-based approach, the causal model Ellis advanced is not accurate. The depression is not caused by events that occur inside (Point B) and outside (Point A) one's subjective world. Instead, one becomes depressed by deducing a conclusion from a set of premises. For example, one may become depressed by setting up this syllogism:

If I was divorced, then what happened to me is so terrible that I might as well be dead. I was divorced. So, what happened to me is so terrible that I might as well be dead.

Practical syllogistic ratings A syllogism is a deductive form of reasoning having two premises and a conclusion. The idea that the reasoning behind our emotions and behavior can be so ordered in terms of a syllogism was in fact an insight of Aristotle, who called this kind of syllogism a "practical syllogism." The distinction is that the conclusion evaluates or rates the thing in question instead of merely describing it. For example, in concluding that something is terrible, a person is negatively rating it, and therefore will act or tend to act and feel negatively toward it. In fact, Aristotle went so far as to claim that the conclusion of a practical syllogism was always an action. According to LBT, by syllogizing one's behavioral and emotional reasoning in terms of the practical syllogism, one is in a better position to find one's irrational premises, refute them, and replace the unsound reasoning with sound "antidotal" reasoning. For example, the first premise in the above syllogism is irrational because one is exaggerating just how bad the divorce is (thinking of it as though it were on the level of a catastrophic disease or natural disaster). LBT also accepts the phenomenological thesis that every mental state, including emotions, has a so-called "intentional object" or "object of the mind." That is, there is always an object to which a mental state refers or is about. Thus, if one is depressed, then one is depressed about something. This intentional object is represented in the descriptive minor premise of the emotional reasoning, for example, the premise "I was divorced" in the aforementioned syllogism. In addition, the syllogisms comprising emotional reasoning always rate the emotional object or some aspect of it. For example, in the aforementioned syllogism, one rates one's divorce as being "terrible". This rating element is represented in the consequent (then clause) of the major premise of the syllogism, as in the premise "If I was divorced, then what happened to me is so terrible that I might as well be dead." Accordingly, the syllogism comprising one's emotional reasoning can be constructed by first finding the intentional object (O) of one's emotion; and second, by finding the rating (R) of the emotion. As such, the valid, hypothetical structure of a syllogism comprising one's emotional reasoning can be symbolized as follows:

If O then R O Therefore R Further, according to LBT, all emotions can be uniquely identified by their intentional object (O) and rating (R) elements. For example, the intentional object of anger is always an action; and the rating is a strong negative evaluation of the action itself or the agent of the action. In depression, the intentional object is an event or state of affairs; and the rating is a strong negative evaluation on the basis of which one strongly negatively rates one's own existence. Thus, one may rate one's divorce as terrible, on the basis of which one gives one's own existence a strong negative evaluation.

Higher order premises

LBT permits clients to trace their inferences to higher order premises that might be at the root of an emotional and behavioral disturbance. For example, by questioning why having been divorced is so bad, another higher level syllogism can be uncovered:

If I was divorced, then that makes me a worthless loser. If that makes me a worthless loser then what happened to me is so terrible that I might as well be dead. So, if I was divorced, what happened to me is so terrible that I might as well be dead. Even higher order premises at the root of the behavioral and emotional disturbance can be uncovered, for example, by asking why being divorced makes one a worthless loser. For example, this higher order syllogism might be uncovered:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Logic-based therapy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Logic-based therapy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Logic-based therapy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Logic-based therapy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Logic-based therapy

In research: Logic-based therapy appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Logic-based therapy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Logic-based therapy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cognitive therapy, Philosophical counseling, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Logic-based therapy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Logic-based therapy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Logic-based therapy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Logic-based therapy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Logic-based therapy in simple terms?

Logic-based therapy (LBT) is a modality of philosophical counseling developed by philosopher Elliot D. Cohen beginning in the mid-1980s.

Why does Logic-based therapy matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Logic-based therapy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Logic-based therapy.