Hi Gregg,

I'll provide a fuller response later, but just to clarify:

   - A genealogical critique is not limited to developmental antecedents.
   - The primary concern is with justifications as cultural systems, with
   their own complex history (that may stretch back centuries).
   - Admittedly, a lesson in history may not be especially helpful to
   persons in states of extreme distress.
   - However, justifications can be reconsidered as relational constructs,
   emerging from dynamic interplay of person and culture.
   - As justifications are revealed as historically contingent, they are
   effectively disarmed.
      - To employ an example from your article:  I might say “*It doesn’t
      matter what I do, the end result is always a failure*.”
         - This statement, considered as a thought, can certainly be
         analyzed.  Moreover, it is possible to demonstrate that it is patently
         false, i.e., there *is* a relationship between behavior and
         consequence.   As such, we are tempted to believe that our primary
         challenge is to help people *choose better thoughts. *  e.g., "It
         seems I consistently don’t get the results I want. I wonder
if I should
         learn a new approach.”
            - This approach meshes well with (and effectively reinforces)
            cultural justification systems that establish an
autonomous, self-contained
            individual (cf. Sampson, 1988
            <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__psycnet.apa.org_record_1988-2D16899-2D001&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=QSa0RgPY3vXmOZIE9-AnZLnoXaJYkNgpCAcFCu8A1xA&s=wXMKjnCCfyXuUcDPitnVVq95jm6O9mGilNVwXAdrDyo&e= >) free to pass
            judgment on *this* or *that* belief system.
            - As I mentioned in a previous message, I understand that it
            may be appropriate to perpetuate this myth on occasion.
         - But we should recognize that justification systems *choose us* even
         as we subject a few token systems to critical scrutiny.  So,
in addition to
         analyzing *this* or *that* justification, we should be asking: *How
         did this justification system come to be in the first place*, and *why
         did it choose me*?
            - To return to the example, I might ask: *whose interests does
            it serve* for me to believe that there is no relationship
            between behavior and its consequences?
               - For some reason, I'm reminded of recent listserv
               discussions of the law of attraction, which seems to reflect the
               opposite belief: "I can have whatever I want if I put
my mind to it."   But
               this too should be subjected to a genealogical
critique.  It's not enough
               to demonstrate that it's false (and to encourage such
magical thinkers to *choose
               better beliefs*).  Rather, it needs to be shown for what it
               is: a "just world" ideology that serves certain interests.
            - My point here is not that we shouldn't subject justification
   systems to critical scrutiny.  Rather, we need to view them holistically,
   as embedded in a constellation of other beliefs that themselves have a long
   history.  Moreover, there is no archimedean perch from which we can view
   all the choices available to us, as if we were in a Justification grocery
   store.  And, to continue with this shopping metaphor:  We are as
much the *product
   *of our justification systems as are the buyers.  CBT, it seems to me,
   is a psychology of the (self-contained) consumer.  And it promotes this
   mythology even as it helps people adopt less "rigid" justifications.

~ Steve Q.

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