Aquinas, Cognitive-Behavioral Psychology, and Habit Formation

Adapting principles from cognitive-behavioral psychology and Aquinas's philosophical psychology: [1]

Event -> sensory experience -> subliminal belief (evaluative rules -> evaluative/automatic thought) -> emotion -> conscious belief -> behavior -> habit (both moral and intellectual (with respect to reinforcing or changing both evaluative thoughts and rules)).

A heuristic cycle begins in which further experiences will be interpreted and reacted to according to past habits.

An analysis of habits must be both moral and intellectual; moral to determine concrete or circumstantial factors that will lead to habit change; intellectual to determine proper goals, means, and unconscious/subliminal significations.

Actual execution of new habit formation program must cling to the end and goals set by the intellectual analysis.

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Notes:

1. Giuseppe Butera, “Thomas Aquinas and Cognitive Therapy: An Exploration of the Promise of the Thomistic Psychology,” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 17, no. 4 (Dec. 2010): 347-364.