Emotion In Medicine

Abstract

On the Cognitive Theory of Emotion an emotion is a cognition (assess- ment or evaluation), which causes bodily feeling. Emotion can be changed by changing the cognition. Negative emotions such as anger, revenge are due to faulty assessments such as failure to accept reality, failure to understand that we can only do that, which is within our power and amisuse of value terms. Emotion is not at all the sort of mentalistic thing that can be “released.” It is on the basis of the cognitive theory of emotion that we may regard negative emotions as philosophy of language fallacies.Assessments are enculturated and so are emotions and in need of an ethical critique, especially in the area of medicine, for healthcare-workers as well as their patients.