What is Cognitive-Perceptual Theory?
by Arnold R. Bruhn PhD “O.k., I’ve had a crummy life. That make you happy? But I don’t want to waste the time I have left by dwelling on all the crap that happened to me when I was a kid. It was bad enough having to live through it the first time.” I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard this, or something like it, in my career as a therapist, but I wish I had a dollar for every time a client told me that. There’s just one problem. Much as we might like to wipe the slate clean when the clutter in our memories becomes a pain, that is not an option. You lived it? You deal with it. Like it or not. Even when it’s not your fault. Our experiences are the raw material we use to construct our sense of self, others and world. Whether we want it to or not, the mind takes the raw material of experience and does something with it. Cognitive-Perceptual theory is designed to help us understand the sense that we have made of our life experiences. Figure it like this. Say you move from one house to ano
