High-powered reasoning not solving it

In recent years I’ve seen more clients coming for therapy who had previously navigated the world effectively by relying on their advanced cognitive skills. They include academics, scientists, people working in technology, researchers.

Others who might rely on the same cognitive methods could include lawyers or really anyone who concluded early on, understandably, that emotions were potentially risky, unwelcome or unreliable territory and cognition was a more dependable way to avoid unforeseen outcomes.

Sometimes due to a combination of work pressure and relational conflict their cognitive system no longer offered a sufficiently complex model to understand what was happening to them.

In therapy they were able to develop a richer model of self, and others, so as to move through this period of transition, identifying more clearly what they wanted, what they feared, and calibrate their responses more accurately to both.