[phkahler]

>>> “Your emotions result entirely from the way you look at things.” >> I wholly disagree with this foundational principle of CBT. Feelings of, say, anxiety or depression can completely bypass rational thought.

Why? It's a circular thing, the reason anxiety or depression can bypass rational thought is that they're drawing your focus to a particular train of thought. There are many thoughts going on in our heads at one time, and emotions can shift our focus to ones of greater emotional impact. IMHO the really strong emotions are often due to unresolved issues or unprocessed past trauma. Once you get those taken care of (no easy task), it's easier to choose a way to look at something that causes you the least distress. Sure, it may not be the ground truth but when it comes to interactions with humans there often isn't an underlying "correct" interpretation of things, so you may as well adopt a view that doesn't bother you and get on with your day.

[altruios]

The road (train of thought) is different from the pathfinding (emotional weight of thoughts), and an error in pathfinding does not indicate anything (error/traumatic/important/wrong) in a train of thought.

This anxiety does not have to reflex reality at all (consider my father and his dementia). The stimuli is inconsequential for a rational observer, but latched onto by the anxious. 'Fixing/dealing' the thought causing the anxiety does nothing to alleviate his anxiety - as there will always be something to be anxious about.

It's not that trains of thoughts are causing his anxiety: it is very clearly his anxiety searching the tracks until it can get on the most disturbing it can find...