the cognitive approach attempts to reduce the influence of the irrational ideas floating around in heads since childhood that stay there and grow with the person to create problems in living as adults. many US psychiatrists believe that convincing the patient of the irrationality of these ideas is the most efficient way to reduce their influence. an important academic psychiatrist who promulgated the cognitive approach was Beck (U of Penn), among others.
however, if you were to take a survey of US psychiatrists and their methods, i'd bet you would usually receive the reply, "eclectic", meaning they'll do anything that works. that could be crawling with the patient among the office chairs and tables while simulating machine gun fire and dropping shells to reinact a traumatic war scene. what approach is that?
in one of his last books, even the ultimate behaviorist, B.F. Skinner, was convincing himself of the usefulness of getting inside the head by this opening statement: "Thinking is behaving." that was quite a turnaround from him, i thought.
she doesn't use her PC much for networking, but uses a notebook for office work. she networks by traveling a lot to conferences and doing the unconventional around the country. for example she treated poor patients in isolated Minn. farming communities in Jan. and Feb. via a Minn. State outreach program while another psychiatrist tended her patients back home.
try to image a psychiatrist with no car on cross-country skis moving from farm to farm!
norm
>"It's ALL cognitive."
Sounds like private psychotherapy is shifting from psychodynamic to cognitive in the USA at least if your daughter's perceptions are correct, and presumably she is networking as well as giving papers at meetings.
Chris Burford