In contrast to the psychoanalytic approach is Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), a philosophical form of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), which I developed beginning in the mid-eighties under the auspices of Albert Ellis. While LBT does not deny the existence of repressed beliefs, it denies that the primary cognitive process for constructive change is the uncovering of such beliefs.  Instead, LBT holds that many behavioral and emotional problems people have are the results of suppressed premises in their reasoning, that is, irrational beliefs that people assume are true without challenging them.  Because these assumptions are conscious, they tend to be much easier and faster to expose than repressed beliefs.

When a belief is repressed, the suggestion that one has it tends to be met with resistance. “Did your father ever touch you when you were a little girl?”  “No!  My father would never do a thing like that!”  On the other hand, if a belief is suppressed, the suggestion that one has it tends to be met with strong affirmation.  This is because suppressed beliefs are usually perceived as being self-evident and therefore in no need of defending.  For example, in many cases, people who were sexually abused as children can recall the event, so the problem is not that the belief is repressed.  Instead, the problem lies in suppressed beliefs they would insist on even if these beliefs were brought to their attention. Thus a woman might insist that, since her father did this to her, it must have been her fault.  And if it was her fault then she must be a (totally) bad person.  A goal of LBT therapy is then to help such a person see that these assumptions are irrational.  “Could you really have stopped him from doing this to you when you were just six years old?”

Therapist: “Have you ever done anything good?”
Client: “Yes”
Therapist: “Then on your logic this makes you also a (totally) good person; which means you are both totally good and (totally) bad; which is absurd.” 

 In some cases a person might have truly repressed the molestation.  However, in such cases, what may be keeping the belief about what happened repressed is a suppressed belief, for example, “If he did this to me he must be a horrible monster.”  In such a case, by helping the person to expose and refute this belief, the monster (the irrational belief), which stands guard over her repressed belief, keeping it in its underground prison, can be slain and the prisoner released.  This is because it is the rating of the father as a “horrible monster” that keeps the belief in the unconscious.  This person can then eventually come to see that, although what her father did was damaging, she can still distinguish this bad deed from the doer (her father).  Consequently, she can reconcile how such a “complete monster” might have also done some good things.  

As the stoic philosopher Epictetus observed, it is not life events that disturb people but rather their (irrational) judgments about these events.  In many cases, these judgments are suppressed premises.  In fact, the most problematic beliefs in your reasoning are not likely to be the ones that you make explicit but rather the ones that you simply assume.  Don’t just assume things.  Question your assumptions and slay some monsters.  Remember, critical thinking, not head shrinking!