Investigating Albert Ellis’s Cognitive Distortions with a Glance at Sophism in Islamic Philosophy

The present study investigates the cognitive distortions posed by Albert Ellis from an Islamic philosophy viewpoint. In line with this, after collecting eleven cases of intellectual distortions put forth by Ellis, a descriptive-analytical-inferential method based on library data is employed to explore each of these cognitive distortions with a look at rational falsifications. In the end, the structure of the cognitive distortions and their relationships with the logical sophism are discovered and it was made clear that philosophical sophism is in fact constituent of the cognitive deviations. As an example, it was proved that the catastrophism cognitive distortions are in fact signs of his return to such a falsification as “taking something other than the cause as the cause”. Thus, the present study enriches the cognitive therapy, on the one hand, and justifies an important applied aspect for logics on the other hand. Moreover, the relationship between cognitive distortion of Ellis’s theory and the rational mistakes was confirmed herein. The distortions were eventually analyzed in their constituent materials.

Keywords:

cognitive distortions , falsification , negative automatic thoughts , cognitive triangle