Faculty Reads: Psychologist Adds Heart to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Techniques

What we think affects how we feel, and how we feel affects how we behave, and how we behave then affects what we think about ourselves…

If one or all facets of this thoughts-feelings-behavior triangle become dysfunctional, though, life can fairly quickly turn chaotic. Luckily, therapeutic techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy help restore our inner life to harmony and break the cycle of disorder.

The question is: Are these techniques doing enough?

Psychology Professor Dean McKay, Ph.D. recently published Working with Emotion in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Clinical Practice (November 2014), a book he co-edited with his former doctoral student Nathan Thoma, Ph.D., GSAS ’08, ’11, a clinical psychologist in New York City.

The book features writings from leading psychologists on the role of emotion in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a psychotherapy that focuses on the relationships between thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. This short-term, goal-oriented, and empirically validated treatment aims to change a client’s problematic behaviors and thinking patterns, which thereby improve how the client feels. It has proven to be effective for a range of psychopathologies, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The problem, McKay says, is that the emotional aspect does not always get its due, which means that clients sometimes leave treatment with a reduction in symptoms, but without fully resolving the issue at hand.

“Clients often seek treatment due to a range of emotional struggles, ones that might linger after successful treatment for behavioral problems and [improving] patterns of thinking,” said McKay, who specializes in treating people with anxiety disorders. “While emotion has never been neglected in CBT, the emphasis on emotional processes has not been as high as it is for the other two domains.”

The book offers information about emotional processes and includes techniques that clinicians can use to better address emotion in therapy. Topics covered include the use of mindfulness therapy and the importance of exposing clients to difficult emotions so that they learn to face uncomfortable feelings rather than use maladaptive behaviors to escape them.

“CBT has long emphasized behaviors and thoughts (or cognitions) as centrally important in psychopathology,” McKay said. “But [we] developed the book in an effort to fill an important gap in the available sources for clinicians.”

— Joanna Mercuri

“Science, Philosophy, and Religion” Lecture to Explore “What is Wisdom?”

What makes a person wise? Is wisdom different than intelligence? Is God the only one that can be called “wise”?

Stephen Grimm, Ph.D., as associate professor of philosophy, will take up the topic of wisdom for the next installment of Fordham University’s John C. and Jeanette D. Walton Lecture in Science, Philosophy, and Religion.

“What is Wisdom?”

Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014

6:30 p.m.

12th-floor Lounge / Corrigan Conference Center

Lincoln Center Campus

113 W. 60th St., New York City

Grimm, a philosopher who specializes in epistemology, is the recipient of a $4.2 million John Templeton Foundation grant — the largest award Fordham has ever received in the humanities. The grant funds Grimm’s interdisciplinary project, “Varieties of Understanding: New Perspectives from Psychology, Philosophy, and Theology,” a three-year initiative that sponsors research into the many ways in which human beings understand the world.

“As human beings, we have a natural desire to understand the world and our place within it… But what exactly is understanding?” said Grimm.

We know generally what understanding is, he said; namely, it is a higher-order cognitive capacity that falls within the broader category of knowledge. To put this in practical terms, the person who has knowledge of a thing might possess a collection of facts about that thing, but the person who understands it is able to also see how these facts relate to one another and to the larger picture.

Wisdom, though, is another category altogether. In the Walton lecture, Grimm will explore questions surrounding this topic, which was favored by ancient and medieval philosophers, yet has been given relatively little attention by contemporary thinkers.

The Walton lectures and workshops features scholars of the highest caliber on topics at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology. Upcoming events will cover current research on how consciousness and free will relate to the brain, the role of science in contemporary society, and more.

For more information, contact the Office of Special Events by email or at (212) 636-6575.

— Joanna K. Mercuri

Faculty Reads: Charting Hegel’s Philosophy

German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) is one of the discipline’s most influential thinkers. Unfortunately, his comprehensive, systematic philosophy is so complex that some contemporary philosophers never fully grasp it.

Thankfully, Fordham professor Michael Baur, Ph.D. has helped to make Hegel’s worldview more accessible. G.W.F. Hegel: Key Concepts (Routledge, 2014), which Baur edited, provides an introduction to both Hegel’s thought and the later philosophical movements that Hegel inspired.

“Hegel was a very comprehensive and systematic thinker, [so] in order to grasp the full meaning of any particular part within Hegel’s system, it is necessary to appreciate the context of the whole,” writes Baur, an associate professor of philosophy and adjunct professor at Fordham Law.

“[In addition,] Hegel developed his innovative and systematic philosophy in continuous dialogue with his own contemporaries. Thus, in order to understand Hegel, it is necessary also to understand the historical context within which, and in response to which, Hegel was developing his own philosophical views.”

The book is divided into two parts. First, it covers the main philosophical themes Hegel addresses, namely, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, ethical theory, political philosophy, philosophy of nature, philosophy of art, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of history.

The second section deals with post-Hegelian movements in philosophy, including Marxism, existentialism, pragmatism, analytic philosophy, hermeneutics, and French post-structuralism.

G.W.F. Hegel his the shelves this week. Click here to read the publisher's synopsis of the book.

— Joanna K. Mercuri

Faculty Reads: East and West Converge on Moral Grounds

Western moral philosophy is built on the works of thinkers such as ancient Greece’s Aristotle and modern Germany’s Immanuel Kant. But in recent decades, many scholars have turned eastward, looking also to Buddhist thought to enlighten important moral and ethical issues.

The scholarship that has followed is copious, but disjointed, said Fordham Professor of philosophy Christopher Gowans. His solution is Buddhist Moral Philosophy: An Introduction (Routledge, 2014).

“There has been a lot of work lately interpreting Buddhist thought in terms of Western moral philosophy, and there is no book that brings this together in a single volume,” said Gowans, who specializes in contemporary moral philosophy and Buddhist philosophy.

“Since there is little that can be considered moral philosophy in the [Buddhist] tradition, this is really a new field. I’m trying to introduce the reader to it.”

He explained that the Buddhist tradition does not approach the subject of moral philosophy like the West does. Although Buddhist thought centers on ethics (namely, how we should live our lives), its philosophical reflections are primarily metaphysical and epistemological—not explicit, how-to guides to morality.

Nevertheless, contemporary scholars find value in examining Buddhist works through a Western lens, drawing on the likes of Aristotle and Kant. But because this scholarship is still evolving, the upshots of uniting Buddhist and Western moral traditions remain unclear.

“An optimistic response might envision these two enterprises as partly overlapping circles… Despite significant differences, there is enough common ground to generate a reasonable expectation that something valuable will come from examining Buddhist thought through the perspectives of Western moral philosophy,” Gowans writes in the book’s introduction.

“A more pessimistic response may [say] any such examination is, in the end, basically a futile effort to fit square pegs into round holes… Readers are invited to determine which of these responses is most appropriate.”

Broken into three sections, the book:

• presents the teaching of the Buddha and developments in Buddhist traditions (mainly the early Mahayana schools);
• examines the main areas of Buddhist moral philosophy (such as well-being, the problem of free will, normative ethics, issues about moral objectivity, and moral psychology) and the concerns that many Western thinkers have concerning karma, rebirth, nirvana, and related topics; and
• introduces readers to a contemporary movement known as socially engaged Buddhism, which delves into ethical issues such as human rights, war and peace, and environmental ethics.

Buddhist Moral Philosophy comes out today.

— Joanna Klimaski Mercuri

Is Modern Media Floundering? Not if it has a Solid Brand.

One day in the mid-1500s, Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, received a letter from a Jesuit superior seeking advice. Should he purchase a printing press for his province? And if so, what kind should he purchase?

Ignatius advised the superior to first ask himself, “Who are you? And who are you seeking to serve?” If a printing press is needed to carry this out, then he should purchase one.

Ignatius was centuries ahead in understanding the importance of brand, said Matt Malone, S.J., GSAS ’07, editor of America magazine, who spoke at a 2014 Jesuit Advancement Administrators conference session at Fordham.

Brand, which equals identity, is vital to an organization’s success. Father Malone offered America’s branding process as an example. Founded by the Jesuits in 1909, America is among the oldest weekly magazines in the country and the only national Catholic publication of its kind. At 105 years old, America has survived countless iterations of communications technology — an accomplishment few publications enjoy.

Despite its ecclesiastical connections, the magazine owes its longevity to neither divine intervention nor philanthropic loyalty. Its success, Father Malone said, boils down to brand.

“The defining characteristic of a modern media organization — the thing that is going to allow it not only to survive, but to prosper in this rapidly-changing media environment — is having a brand,” he said. “It’s what every organization needs to get right to accomplish what it’s trying to do.”

The first and most important question for an organization to ask itself is, “Who are we?” The answer should clearly distinguish its brand from its product.

“Brand is platform- and product-neutral,” he said. “For example, if IBM’s brand came down to ‘We make typewriters,’ then they would no longer be in business. Instead, their brand is, ‘We solve business problems.’”

Any ensuing questions, such as what an organization does, who is its audience, and how it accomplishes its mission, will derive from that first answer. Again, Father Malone stressed, the answers to these questions should never be tethered to a platform or product.

The brand inquiry at America generated a simple statement: “America is a Jesuit media ministry, a smart Catholic take on faith and culture that leads the conversation by producing content that is unique, accessible, relevant and impactful.”

“None of that has anything to do with our platform, that is, whether we’re in print, we’re online, or we have an iPad app,” Father Malone said.

Platform neutrality is especially important for media organizations, he said, because the communications field is in constant flux. These groups, which include university marketing and public relations departments, should focus on one task: To move from producing content that fits a single platform (such as print) toward content that can be disseminated across multiple platforms — print, digital, social media, and more.

And brand, Father Malone said, is what links it all together.

“Good media companies know that when you’re trying to build a community across multiple platforms, you need one thing that narrates the experience,” he said. “That’s brand — what makes multiple platforms cohere.”

Moreover, when a certain technology no longer serves the brand, then organizations must move on and find technologies that do, Father Malone said — though this often causes great heartache for media outlets grieving the decline of print.

But there, too, Ignatius was in the vanguard. Ignatius advised the superior that if he does purchase a printing press, then he shouldn’t get just any press — he should get the best. And if that should become obsolete, then he ought to move on to whatever will best accomplish his mission.

“We have to ask ourselves these questions, tough as they are,” Father Malone said. “We have to be unafraid to cherish what is perennial — the values that form our brand — and to discard the things that no longer work, no matter how much they’ve contributed to our wellbeing and prosperity.”

— Joanna Klimaski Mercuri

Faculty Reads: Jonathan Edwards’ Passionate Pursuit of Rational Truth

Think “Jonathan Edwards,” and images such as a zealous preacher at a pulpit or a spider dangling over a fire might come to mind.

But as Kathryn Reklis, Ph.D. reveals in her new book, Theology and the Kinesthetic Imagination: Jonathan Edwards and the Making of Modernity (Oxford University Press, 2014), the Jonathan Edwards of the Great Awakening was about much more than fire-and-brimstone.

Reklis, an assistant professor of theology, contends that Edwards is key to a problem plaguing many contemporary theologians: How theology can save itself from irrelevance in the postmodern world.

She explains that by the mid-20th century, many Christian theologians were growing dissatisfied with the way theology had been conducted over the previous two centuries.  The Enlightenment, the “Age of Reason,” prompted theologians to approach their discipline in a rationalistic way, treating Christian doctrines like logical propositions in an attempt to cast theology as a science.

However, this “rational pursuit of ultimate truth” left some concerned that theology had abandoned its true strengths, such as an emphasis on the roles that beauty, bodily experience, desire, and emotions play in Christian life.

Reklis argues that 18th-century American preacher Jonathan Edwards strikes that balance between those domains. A follower of John Locke and Isaac Newton, Edwards strived to pursue truth through a rational, scientific method. And yet, Edwards was also devoted to a more visceral pursuit of truth. He defended the intense religious revivals (passionate preaching experiences that often inspired intense emotional reactions in listeners) of the Great Awakening, and believed people could know God through a “‘spiritual sense’ as true and reliable as one of our five senses.”

“He was committed to ‘the new science’ of his day—meaning, truth arrived at through experience and deduction, or what we might think of as the scientific method,” Reklis said. “At the same time, he was a strict Calvinist […] To defend his understanding of Christianity, he turned to concepts of human desire, emotion, and bodily experience as proof of first-hand experience of the divine.

“So he was this strange figure who was embracing modernity—science, rationality, etc.—and who was also using those new tools to defend a very ‘old-fashioned’ view of Christianity.”

Herself a blend of historical and contemporary theological training, Reklis aims to use Edwards’ “alternative modern” approach to explore the question of contemporary theology’s relevance and how concepts such as beauty, body, and desire might serve to revive contemporary Christian theology.

“In [Edwards’] day, evangelical Christians split from ‘rational’ Christians, or what we came to call the mainline Protestant denominations in the United States,” she said. “I try to show that the same concepts many mainline academic Protestant theologians want to rescue now—such as the importance of beauty, bodily experience, and desire—are the ones Edwards used.”

— Joanna Klimaski Mercuri

UPDATE: Christiana Peppard, Paul Levinson to speak at NY’s Comic Con

Paul Levinson and Christiana Peppard

* This post was updated on Oct. 11. See updates at the asterisks. 

Fordham professors speak at several conferences throughout the year, and sometimes they’re high up on the pop culture scale.

Last May, for instance, Thomas Beaudoin, Ph.D., associate professor of theology at Fordham’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, gave a presentation on “Secular Music as a Quest for More” as part of a panel at the very buzzworthy South By Southwest (SXSW) tech and music conference in Austin, Texas.

This Saturday, Oct. 12, Christiana Peppard, Ph.D., professor of theology, science, and ethics, will join a panel at New York’s Comic Con. *Paul Levinson, Ph.D., professor of communications and media studies, has recently been added to the panel. 

Hosted by Academy Award-nominated actor, James Woods, the panel will focus on “Tech Toys from the Future.” It is presented by Futurescape, a six-part series on the Science Channel.

According to show organizers, this “tech road show from the future” will feature notable “‘rock stars of the gadget world’ as they unveil the ‘latest and greatest’ in the world of technology.”

Attendees will also see exclusive footage from the upcoming season of Futurescape with commentary from the producers.

“Each episode of Futurescape will look at one idea or discovery that will critically alter life as we know it: Synthetic Biology, Predictive Analytics, Habitable Planets, Nano Technology.

“Woods will ask the big questions, ignite debate and reveal a stunning image of the future.”

That’s where Peppard will come in, as she’ll discuss some future aspects of synthetic biology. *Paul Levinson will discuss the civil rights of robots. (Yes, you read that right.) Here's how describes it:

"We invent robots to be our servants -- to do dangerous or tedious jobs that we would rather not do," Levinson says. "We try to make them more and more intelligent, so they do their jobs better. What happens when we make our robots so intelligent that they are sentient beings? Are we morally entitled to continue treating them as slaves? Or will our future robots be entitled to civil rights?"

Two Fordham professors and an Academy Award-nominated actor discussing the future? Sounds good to us!

New York Comic Con is the East Coast's biggest popular culture convention. Its show floor plays host to the latest and greatest in comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies and television. 

-Gina Vergel