In my experience, ~nothing in this area is downright revolutionary. Most therapies are heavily influenced by previous concepts and techniques. (Personally, I’d still say that CFT brings something new to the table.)
I guess what matters if it works for you or not.
Is this assertion borne out by twin studies? Or is believing it a test for CFT suitability only?
To some extent. Most human traits have a genetic component, including (Big-Five) personality traits, depressive tendencies, anxiety disorders, conduct disorders, personality disorders, and so on. (e.g., Polderman et al., 2015). This is also true for (self-)destructive tendencies like malevolent personality traits (citing my own summary of some studies here because I’m lazy, sorry).
(Also agree with Kaj’s warning about misinterpreting heritability.)
More generally speaking, I’d say this belief is borne out of understanding evolutionary psychology/history. Basically, all of our motivations and fears have an evolutionary basis. We fear death, because the ancestors who didn’t were eaten by lions. We fear being ostracized and care about being respected because in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness our survival and reproductive success was dependent on our social status. Therefore, it’s to be expected that most humans, at some point or another, worry about death or health problems or feel emotions like jealousy or envy. They don’t have to be rooted in some trauma or early life experience—though they are usually exacerbated by them. In most cases, it’s not realistic to eliminate such emotions entirely. This doesn’t mean that one is an “abnormal” or “defective” person that experienced irreversible harm inflicted by another human sometime in one’s development. (Just to be clear, as mentioned in the main text, no one believes that life experiences don’t matter. Of course, they matter a great deal!)
But yeah, if you are skeptical of the above, it’s a good reason to not seek a CFT therapist.
In my experience, ~nothing in this area is downright revolutionary. Most therapies are heavily influenced by previous concepts and techniques. (Personally, I’d still say that CFT brings something new to the table.)
I guess what matters if it works for you or not.
To some extent. Most human traits have a genetic component, including (Big-Five) personality traits, depressive tendencies, anxiety disorders, conduct disorders, personality disorders, and so on. (e.g., Polderman et al., 2015). This is also true for (self-)destructive tendencies like malevolent personality traits (citing my own summary of some studies here because I’m lazy, sorry).
(Also agree with Kaj’s warning about misinterpreting heritability.)
More generally speaking, I’d say this belief is borne out of understanding evolutionary psychology/history. Basically, all of our motivations and fears have an evolutionary basis. We fear death, because the ancestors who didn’t were eaten by lions. We fear being ostracized and care about being respected because in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness our survival and reproductive success was dependent on our social status. Therefore, it’s to be expected that most humans, at some point or another, worry about death or health problems or feel emotions like jealousy or envy. They don’t have to be rooted in some trauma or early life experience—though they are usually exacerbated by them. In most cases, it’s not realistic to eliminate such emotions entirely. This doesn’t mean that one is an “abnormal” or “defective” person that experienced irreversible harm inflicted by another human sometime in one’s development. (Just to be clear, as mentioned in the main text, no one believes that life experiences don’t matter. Of course, they matter a great deal!)
But yeah, if you are skeptical of the above, it’s a good reason to not seek a CFT therapist.