life often take the form of subconscious ruminations over possible threats to our well-being.  Cognitive theories of emotion, such as that of Albert Ellis, use an "A-B-C" model to spell out what happens to keep us constantly on edge. In this model, the "A" is an activating  event, "B" is the belief, and "C" is the consequent emotion. The worries that plague us unnecessarily are the result of irrational beliefs triggered by the event. For example, you may worry that you'll make a terrible mistake the next time you get into a new relationship. This worry comes from the belief that you're not really a very likeable person and that everyone "must" like you (what Ellis called "masturbation"). The activating event can be anything ranging from an email exchange to a goodnight kiss. It's the belief, the irrational one, which causes you to experience unnecessary worry and anxiety. The essence of cognitive therapy involves helping clients learn to change their emotions by changing their thoughts. Cognitive-behavioral therapy goes one step farther in prescribing a series of activities that clients undertake in order to ensure that they don't just think, but also act, differently. In neuroscience terms, cognitive-behavioral therapy retrains the rational part of the cortex to take control over the irrational emotions of the limbic system.  As I pointed out above, ordinarily, the cortex receives input from the outside environment through the sense organs, which in turn shoot messages through at least a part of the limbic system. That's why