I'm currently in the midst of my "Beck meets Freud" workshop on Cape Cod and it is going quite well. Today we covered my ideas about how CT can understand and deal with defense mechanisms.

It turns out that it works quite well to conceptualize defense mechanisms in terms of attempts to avoid affect and/or cope with affect. Just as overt avoidance behavior plays a role in many problems, the cognitive maneuvers that humans use to avoid anxiety, guilt, etc. also play a role in many problems. Cognitive therapists have been dealing with this implicitly for decades but I hope that by discussing it more explicitly we'll be able to be more effective.

More on this as time permits. If you're interested in hearing me expound on this, don't forget that I'll be presenting a two-day workshop in Toronto in December, 2005 (see http://www.leadingedgeseminars.org/).