Critical Thinking Therapy
Led by Dr. Linda Elder
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025
1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
(10:00 a.m. PDT)
FIND OUT MORE AND SIGN UP HERE
Duration: 60 Minutes
Open to All!
This is primarily a presentation that will provide time at the end for attendee questions.
Webcams are optional.
We record webinars for later viewing by members of The Center for Critical Thinking Community Online, and some clips may also be posted on other platforms.
Critical Thinking Therapy assumes that mental health depends, among other things, on reasonable thinking. One cannot be emotionally healthy while being an unreasonable person, and reasonability requires critical thinking. Yet mental health professionals generally misunderstand critical thinking and its vital importance to effective mental health therapies.
It isn’t that mental health professionals never think critically; in fact, the best therapeutic approaches to mental health have a direct relationship with critical thinking. However, clinicians do not always utilize the best mental health therapies, because they don’t always know how to choose among the theories and therapies from various schools of mental health. In other words, they are frequently unclear as to the standards they should use in adopting and applying counseling strategies to their clients.
Dr. Elder’s new book, Critical Thinking Therapy: For Happiness and Self-Actualization, introduces a substantive theory of critical thinking to the field of mental health therapy. It details a broad, integrated set of critical thinking tools for use in self-therapy and professional therapy. It is for individuals seeking a more enlightened, more fulfilled, less fearful, and less self-defeating orientation to the world. It is also for those not reaching their potential who seek a self-actualizing frame of mind.
To this point, only some of critical thinking’s many tools have made their way into the mental health profession, mainly through cognitive behavioral therapies. This book vastly broadens and deepens the critical thinking concepts and principles explicitly available to therapists, and is therefore recommended for their use with clients, as well as for clients and individuals working alone.
In this webinar, Dr. Elder will discuss how Critical Thinking Therapy’s concepts and activities can serve as foundations for improved mental health and self-actualization, both in the context of professional therapy and for those pursuing their own wellness. She will then open the session to your questions.
Webinar attendees will benefit from having some familiarity with certain critical thinking concepts and how they interweave with mental health. We advise completing as many of the following activities in advance of the webinar as you can. These require an account in The Center for Critical Thinking Community Online, where a 30-day free trial is available for new users.
1. Read through page 13 of the partial copy of The Thinker's Guide to the Human Mind found in the Community Online.
2. Read pages 12, 14-21, and 24-25 in the partial copy of The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools found in the Community Online.
3. Complete the activity “Identify Some of Your Irrational Beliefs.” See if you can think of any examples related to mental health specifically. (Be sure to read the content at the top of the page first.)
4. Complete the activity “Identify Beliefs Acquired Through Group Membership.”