This Is Not a Thought: A Post-Structural Exploration of Cognitive Defusion

This training invites therapists to step beyond the limits of traditional cognitive models and explore how language, culture, and power shape the inner worlds of our clients. You’ll learn to recognize how thoughts function—not as truths to be corrected, but as linguistic events that can entangle, constrain, or liberate. Drawing from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Relational Frame Theory, and post-structural thinkers like Foucault and Deleuze, this course translates complex philosophical ideas into practical clinical skills. Together, we’ll examine how cognitive fusion forms through cultural memes, relational frames, internalized norms, and the “internal panopticon” of self-monitoring. Through case examples, metaphors, and experiential exercises, you’ll learn how to help clients step back from rigid narratives and move toward values-aligned action. We’ll also explore the ethical dimension of cognitive defusion—how shifting our relationship to language can reduce shame, honor lived experience, and validate sociocultural realities that traditional CBT often overlooks. By the end, you’ll have a deeper understanding of how thoughts operate, how suffering is constructed, and how defusion can support clients in building lives that are flexible, meaningful, and self-authored. Learning Objectives 1. Critique the limitations of traditional CBT in addressing sociocultural and identity-based experiences of distress. 2. Analyze the implications of cognitive fusion through a sociocultural and post-structural lens, including its relationship to power, identity, and internalized norms. 3. Define cognitive fusion and defusion within the framework of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). 4. Identify common clinical examples of fused thinking and explain how fusion contributes to psychological suffering. 5. Describe how language, cultural memes, and relational frames shape internal narratives and reinforce identity-based fusion. 6. Create original metaphors for cognitive defusion to use in clinical practice.