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Thinking Postcognitively about Depression

  • James C. Coyne
Chapter

Abstract

The resurgence of the cognitive perspective in the early 1970s was so strong that it became widely described as the “cognitive revolution” (Dember, 1974). More than a decade later, there still has been little in the way of critical response or sober reevaluation of the enthusiastic claims and polemics that accompanied this shift in perspective. As measured by the continued outpouring of articles, chapters, books, and even new journals, the cognitive perspective is clearly in ascendance in clinical psychology, as well as much of the rest of the discipline. Dissent is muted, and, with the exception of the perennial question of the causal priority of cognition over emotion (Lazarus, 1984; Zajonc, 1984), there is little in the way of spirited theoretical debate. On the rare occasions when theoretical disagreements do occur, they are largely confined to minor issues arising within the cognitive perspective, rather than representing any challenge to the basic assumptions of the perspective.

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© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1989

Authors and Affiliations

  • James C. Coyne
    • 1
  1. 1.University of Michigan Medical SchoolAnn ArborUSA

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