Hey there. Thanks for your response I really enjoy having theorietical discussions and kicking ideas around so thanks for taking the time to think and to disagree.

I know that there is nothing in the CBT / REBT textbooks about how one must be sure to invalidate or disregard the clients experience of their emotional states... I just think... That this can be an UNINTENTIONAL consequence of a view that places such a heavy burden on the role of cognitive factors in the production and modification of emotional responses.

So, for example, you have some theorists working on modifying / altering CBT in a way that appreciates that ACCEPTANCE is JUST AS important as CHANGE. And that EMOTIONS can be just as primary as THOUGHTS. Linehan has done some work on this. And there is a book that she has written with the ACT guy (acceptance and committment therapy) Hayes (or similar) and there is a part about the 'third wave' of CBT. The first being Behaviourism, the second being Cognitivism, the third being... Well... Focused on the role of Mindfulness / Acceptance / Affective Primacy etc.

CBT contradicts itself regarding whether it does or does not make a committment regarding the primacy of cognition over emotion. I imagine that is because... Different theorists think differently. I have also found people contradicting themselves over that one...

'It simply says that cognition is very influential'

Sometimes cognition does indeed have an influence on emotional states.

But I want to maintain (and they do not) that othertimes EMOTION IS INDEPENDENT FROM COGNITION AND IS NEITHER CAUSED BY IT NOR CAN BE MODIFIED BY IT

I know dogs don't have cognition ;-)
That was the point of the example.
I was being a little tongue in cheek.
It is a vivid example of emotion without cognition is it not?
And OF COURSE the dogs emotional responses are unable to be modified by telling the dog 'tones can't hurt you' because the dog cannot understand what you are saying...
But...
I think some human emotional responses can be like that too.
Informationally encapsulated from higher cognitive processes...
And unable to be modified by higher cognitive processes...

Your fear of airplanes...

How many airplane crashes have you seen on tv?
In the newspaper?

Experience...
Can be vicarious too...

In fact...

You probably hear more hoo ha around airplane crashes than you hear around car crashes...

Which might go some way towards explaining why it is that you fear airplane crashes more than car crashes...

Whats with the urge to have yourself described as 'irrational'?

Rational response...

What is most likely to help you?

Repeat after me:

'you are more likely to crash your car than in an airplane'
'not many airplanes crash really'

or...

flooding...
or graduated exposure...

?