ABSTRACT
We have already seen how the metacognitive approach differentiates metacognitive knowledge from other knowledge about the self and the world. Another area of contrast with other cognitive theories is the way in which knowledge is represented. CBT and REBT refer to the semantic content of knowledge and express their respective schemas or irrational beliefs in verbal declarative form (e.g. ``I'm worthless'' and ``I must be approved of by virtually everyone in order to be worthwhile''). This is a useful heuristic, but metacognitive theory acknowledges that knowledge is not likely to be represented in this way in the cognitive system, and it may be more useful to think of knowledge as a set of programmes or plans that direct thinking and action (Wells & Matthews, 1994, 1996). In essence, these are metacognitive programmes for guiding processing, and in this sense constitute a proceduralized knowledge base. The marker for these procedures would be declarative statements such as ``I must worry in order to avoid harm'', but this declarative belief would be closely linked to plans for guiding the activity of the processing system in the implementation of worrying. In this scenario the modi®cation of beliefs should not only include verbal challenging of the level of conviction in metacognitions but also provide individuals with alternative plans for processing.
