CBT Therapist and Psychoanalyst Get Into Fistfight at Mental Health Conference

A cognitive behavioral therapist and a psychoanalyst engaged in a physical altercation at the National Association of Mental Health Professionals conference Saturday, undermining the panel they were both presenting on, which was titled 'Finding Common Ground: Integrative Approaches to Therapeutic Practice.' The incident began when CBT practitioner Dr. Karen Schema presented a slide showing a flowchart of cognitive distortions and described psychoanalysis as 'a modality where you pay someone to talk about your mother for seven years and then they tell you it's about your father.' Psychoanalyst Dr. Heinrich Couch responded by noting that CBT 'reduces the profound complexity of human suffering to a worksheet' and that 'asking a depressed person to challenge their negative thoughts is like asking a drowning person to challenge the water.' The exchange escalated through several increasingly personal rounds before Dr. Schema accused Dr. Couch of 'practicing a therapeutic modality invented by a cocaine enthusiast,' a reference to Sigmund Freud that prompted Dr. Couch to stand and describe CBT as 'behaviorism in a lab coat pretending to have discovered the mind.' Physical contact was initiated — accounts differ on by whom — resulting in both presenters falling behind the podium while the audience of 400 mental health professionals watched in what conference chair Dr. Patricia Rapport described as 'a collective countertransference response.' Both therapists were separated by conference security and have been referred to anger management counseling. Neither has agreed on what type of anger management would be appropriate. 'I recommend a structured CBT approach,' said Dr. Schema from behind an ice pack. 'He needs long-term psychodynamic work to address the underlying narcissistic injury,' countered Dr. Couch, nursing a bruised elbow. The conference has cancelled the remaining integrative panels.