ABSTRACT
The word 'cognitive' give impression that cognitive behaviour therapists focus only on thoughts and exclude feelings. This is untrue as emotions are the starting point for therapeutic intervention; after all, clients usually come to therapy complaining of how they are feeling, not about what they are thinking. Thoughts and feelings are continually linked in therapy by the therapist teaching the cognitive model and the client filling in the daily thought record (DTR) forms. The Blackburn and Davidson emphasize: Cognitive therapy cannot progress without taking emotions into consideration. If the patient cannot have access to his painful emotions, he and the therapist elicit the negative thoughts which need attending to. Put simply, cognitive therapy cannot take place without first eliciting relevant emotional reactions. The first cognitive therapy treatment manual, Cognitive Therapy of Depression contained a chapter called 'The role of emotions in cognitive therapy' and stressed that the therapist 'needs to be able to empathize with the patient's painful emotional experiences'.
