Psychomorphics: The Story of the Cosmic Light

Abstract

In the late 1970s there was a severe gas shortage and rationing was imposed. While sitting in the long lines waiting for limited fuel, I wanted to use the time productively and began to write while in the car waiting. I reviewed the lectures I was presenting to psychiatry residents when teaching them the basics of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). I looked at the structure of my presentations and also began to think about how this could be presented to children, who made up a large portion of my practice. I envisioned creating characters depicting the core cognitive distortions frequently encountered and explained during psychotherapy. I titled the process of making characters out of these core distortions and called the process psychomorphics. Psychomorphics is the action of making cognitive distortions visible by personifying them and using a story to help children instantly grasp the underlying concepts used in Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). As noted, it is conceptually based, focusing on three core cognitive distortions that seem to lead to most human psychological problems.