The Big Answer

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A new psychology offshoot, psychology of mind, has evolved out of a kind of neo-cognitive psychological model, in which instead of helping you change your erroneous thoughts into correct and appropriate ones, you’re helped to stop identifying with the process of thinking itself. Low moods indicate that we are identifying with our thoughts. Est and re-evaluation counseling both focused attention on getting people to see the difference between their “stuff” (thoughts, emotions, problems, what-ifs, worries, fears, plans) and their beings—a shift of center from stuff to Self was key. Psychology of mind doesn’t dwell on problems and symptoms, but upon the good feelings that sometimes emerge. Most conventional therapists consider this new technique as denial and repression that fails to uncover the source of people’s difficulties or to understand them. How good can counseling be without understanding?

How good can counseling be without understanding?

Their strength is in some of the reported results, the way people are empowered to learn how to dump useless negative thoughts and control their thinking (putting them at cause of their thinking rather than at effect of it), and the way people can substitute good feelings for their drug, alcohol and other addictions. Their weakness seems to be in the danger of applying this approach to seriously ill people who need more in-depth help. Time will tell if founder Sydney Banks really has his finger on something revolutionary in his psychology of mind approach. In the meantime, see Burns' Feeling Good—a proven cognitive method.