The Humanistic Default And Complement Of CBT

In 1980s, Fauconnier put forward conceptual blending theory (CBT) with the aim to upgrade blending process to a common human cognitive mechanism for various meaning constructions. Whether it is of linguistic phenomena like word compounding, metaphor and metonymy or of nonlinguistic phenomena like puzzle solving or human rituals, it can be effectively explained by the conceptual integration network of the theory. Thus, it attracts a lot of linguists'interest to focus their studies on its mechanism and application.However, most of these studies are carried out in the method of applying the theory to explaining the phenomenon but not in the reversed way, in which the phenomenon helps to examine the theory. The major problem arising from the method is that the theory is regarded as a "perfect" tool and the phenomenon is explained to adapt to the "perfect" theory. If the studies are carried out in the direction from phenomenon to theory, can CBT be analyzed more profoundly? This is a problem needed for further study. Another problem of this theory is that in spite of the great effort to refine the theory, most of these related studies are devoted to the blending process itself and its applications in various fields but ignore the individuals who possess this mechanism. Since individuals'cognitive activities are more or less influenced by psychological states such as depression and anxiety, it is reasonable to wonder whether these states can cause the failure of triggering the blending mechanism. Although CBT has been commonly worshipped as a breakthrough which embraces human cognition, it ignores the fact that the blending process indeed takes place in human beings, who are strongly influenced by various psychological factors. That is humanistic default. Whether the humanistic factor can be introduced into the theory is a new subject.This dissertation addresses the two issues mentioned above and has found a new method to refine the theory, that is, a case study of CBT. This is from a specific case to theory and then from the refined theory to more general applications. Since humanistic factor is closely related to psychological states of individuals, it is reasonable to apply the theory into a psychological field which involves meaning constructions. Therefore, a specific case drawn from narrative psychotherapy will be provided to be analyzed by the integration network and the failure of its explanatory power will be illustrated. Then, being inspired by the therapeutic process, which is designed to help the client trigger the blending process, the way to refine CBT is found out. This is the way how the new method works. During the process, the major problem of CBT is clarified:the lack of the psychological factor-memory, which is strongly influenced by individuals'psychological states such as depression and anxiety. By introducing memory into the theory, the nature and the resources of the four spaces and the connections of the elements in and between the spaces are definitely illustrated and it can not only effectively explain why the depression or anxiety stricken client fails to form the input spaces to trigger the blending process, but also these phenomena like why the people from different culture background are unable to understand the metaphors or metonymies involved in each other's language. Moreover, it cannot only be used to explain the on-line meaning constructions but also can be applied to the long-term meaning constructions. This dissertation not only provides a new method but also refines the theory from the humanistic perspective.