alex, great post. It pretty much sums up the way I feel about CBT. It is just not a good fit for me.

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Fortunately there is another theory of emotions that is gaining ground... On this theory it is acknowledged that emotions can occur in the absense of any conscious evaluation / judgement and the evaluations / judgements of emotion (insofar as they deserve to be called that) mostly AREN'T accessable (or changeable) by conscious introspection.

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Yes, this is much closer to what emotions are for me than the cognitive definition you wrote.

Knowing what I know now about myself and about therapy, if I went to a therapist and he became obsessed with trying to change my thinking, even when I told him that was not the problem, I would probably just leave. If the therapist can't adjust the therapy to fit what the client needs, then he is not a very good therapist, IMO. I have very rational and accurate thinking. My problem is not my thinking but dealing with my feelings, past trauma, etc. I remember once my original counselor (who was in general CBT but didn't force it on me overmuch) was convinced that I was exagerrating what would happen if I did X in my life (I think exaggeration is one of the types of distorted thinking that CBTers define). I was so desperate to get better that against my better judgement, I went through the process of doing X and then reported the extremely painful and awful results to her, worse even than my original assessment (which she had thought was "faulty thinking"). At that point, I think she saw that my thinking was accurate and could be trusted, and she became more flexible in her approach. Nevertheless I did leave her after a while and found a therapist who had a bigger skill set and could offer me more effective help and support. The great irony is that my insurance would reimburse 90% of the cost for this fairly limited and ineffective CBT counselor but won't reimburse a penny for my current eclectic therapist, who has pretty much saved my life.