A lady was once referred for treatment for emotional distress. This distress had resulted from unpleasant memories of having undergone sexual abuse. In her case cognitive therapy had been unhelpful, Her own opinion was that cognitive therapy did not address the anger and fear that she was feeling strongly .

There are many approaches in therapy that are available for anyone who wants this service. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)is the most well known, because it is the most researched form of therapy. CBT is the product of the West, where people are encouraged to think and discouraged to feel emotions. CBT is based on the premise that our thinking can change our feelings.

This is not always true. When people undergo abuse or torture, no amount of thinking is going to sort out the feeling of rage that underlies such experiences. The rage that one feels about such experiences overwhelms the thinking ability of an individual and the person still ends up acting out the emotion. In all such cases CBT fails to get any results. Yet because it has been written about widely, mental health practitioners erroneously believe that it is the only suitable form of therapy in almost all forms of psychological conditions.

A middle aged man, enraged by an ex-employees deception wanted to harm the ex-employee physically. Overwhelmed by anger, he felt that the only way the person would realize how they felt was by conferring physical pain. No amount of reason or logic was useful. According to him, action had to be taken. The best solution in this case was to reduce the anger by releasing it. When it was done in a few minutes, he thanked me for helping him out of the situation. The perception had changed. The thoughts were non-aggressive. Needless to say, he did not act out the rage.

When our inner drives are strong, they overwhelm our thinking. At such times reason or logic is governed by the drives. Anger is one such emotion. When it takes the form of rage, the person may lash out physically. The solution does not lie in reasoning with the person, but to help the person reduce the drive. In other situations when the anger is in the form of annoyance, reason can still be used to distract the person away from the issue. But the feeling stays. To distinguish between times when behaviour can be changed by thinking and when it cannot be changed by thinking requires wisdom.

Pradeep Chadha

Born and brought up in India, Pradeep has spent last many years of his life learning and working in Europe. He is able to blend the spirituality from the East with the intellect from the West to help bring about changes in people's lives with and without medication. He initially trained as a physician in India. In Ireland he got training in psychiatry and hypnosis.When psychotherapy was considered quackery, he set up his practice in Dublin. Now many years later, he is still ahead of his time as psychotherapy has become a recognised part of psychiatric services. He has presented many original papers in international conferences. He has been published in mostly alternative therapy journals. He has appeared on radio and television. He is the author of The Stress Barrier- Nature's Way to Overcoming Stress published by Blackhall Publishing, Dublin.