ABSTRACT
Self-Regulatory Executive Function (S-REF) metacognitive theory differs from the theories of Beck and Ellis and most other cognitive approaches to psychopathology in being grounded in information processing theory. It has a cognitive architecture, meaning that it has an overall structure that differentiates knowledge or beliefs, online (attentionally demanding) conscious processing and automatic low-level emotional processing, and the nature of relationships between them. This is important because the relationship between these factors is likely to be a source of disorder and may be more important than the content of negative thoughts or social beliefs. Whilst Beck's schema theory uses terms associated with information processing approaches, such as schema and attention bias, it really focuses on cognitive content rather than explaining in detail how information is transmitted, the form it takes, how it passes through levels from stimulus to response and how levels of cognition are connected. This level of explanation is required for true information processing accounts and is described to a greater degree in the S-REF model.
