Saturday, July 4, 2009

How might Cognitive Analytic Therapy help Holden Caulfield from J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye?

One of the important features of Cognitive Analytic Behavior is the idea that it helps the patient to formulate their understanding of problems as the result of patterns that they can then try to modify to avoid "maladaptive behaviors." One of the things that Holden focuses on is the idea that everyone is "phony," and in doing so he ignores any possibility that his problems and behaviors result from the way that he interacts with other people.


Instead of trying to blame a particular person or characteristic, CAB might help Holden to start to look carefully at the way that he interacts with others and the way that flaws in those interactions may drive some of the behaviors that are problematic for him.


The idea that the therapist could hopefully identify some of the issues that stem from Holden's childhood and then give him opportunities to identify problematic interactions and then formulate more effective methods seems to be particularly relevant to Holden's case.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thomas Jefferson's election in 1800 is sometimes called the Revolution of 1800. Why could it be described in this way?

Thomas Jefferson’s election in 1800 can be called the “Revolution of 1800” because it was the first time in America’s short history that pow...