ABSTRACT
Cognitive restructuring therapy (CRT) is one of the newest approaches to counseling being used by psychologists, psychiatric social workers, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals today. The Jewish mystic language of cabalic sod is offered as but one alternative in the PaRDeS system. The open, noncanonical nature of PaRDeS contains, on the one hand, a most important psychological guide for interpreting the living text while, on the other hand, it entails obstacles inviting an oversimplified anthropomorphic misconstrual of text and context. This double-edged sword embedded in the PaRDeS system may be understood by following a dispute that evolved around the connotation of the Hebrew word be'ur. In contrast to psychoanalysis, cognitive therapy deals with what is immediately derivable from conscious experiences. The cognitive therapist does not look for hidden meanings in the patient's thoughts, whereas the psychoanalyst deals with them as symbolic transformations of unconscious fantasies.
