Beck has described a variety of levels and types of cognition

Much of the initial impact of cognitive therapy came from Beck's concept of negative automatic thoughts (NATs). As often happens, simpli®ed versions of cognitive therapy circulated in the therapy world, and these may have been overfocused on the importance of NATs, which were after all, phenomena that most people could get hold of and use without vast amounts of training. In addition, as Alford and Beck (1997, p. 67) put it:

Cognitive therapy originated in a context of pragmatic exigencies associated with clinical practice.