Cognitive-Behavioural Model (CBT) has become something like the predominant paradigm in psychotherapy. When examining national recommendations (fx UK), there is little doubt that CBT is promoted as the therapy of choice and the preferred first line treatment for depression, eating disorders, panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The main aim of my talk is to revise the theoretical foundations of CBT. I will proceed in three steps. First, I will argue that CBT is in part based on misleading philosophical assumptions. These are:

1. (1) Emotional experiences and feelings are caused by beliefs

2. (2) Beliefs involve representational states

Second, drawing on new developments in the philosophy and neuroscience of emotions, I will attempt to construct a new and more coherent theoretical framework for CBT and work out some of the practical consequences.