A few months ago the Academy of Cognitive Therapy mailinglist had an interesting discussion of CBT approaches to dealing with some psychodynamic concepts such as "defense mechanisms." The discussion was interesting in its own right, but it also reminded me of previous discussions/debates about CBT's ways of dealing with psychodynamic concepts and the question of whether we have anything to learn from psychodynamic approaches. One thing led to another, and the end result is that I'll be presenting a week-long seminar on Cape Cod this summer on CT's approach to "depth issues".

Can CT address "deep" issues such as resistance, family of origin problems, transference and countertransference, defense mechanisms, childhood traumas, dreams and fantasies? Do we have anything to teach psychodynamic therapists about dealing with "deep" issues? Can we learn anything from psychodynamic approaches? I'll be arguing that the answer to each of these questions is yes and will be exploring how all this applies to clinical practice.

Join me on Cape Cod for Beck Meets Freud? Cognitive Therapy in Depth, July 25-29, 2005. For more information, go to http://www.cape.org/2005/pretzer.html. I'll also be posting some of my ideas here (as time permits) and I'd like to hear your questions and comments.