the idea of the cyclical interplay between environment, cognition, and behavior, calling it the negative triad. The negative triad works as follows.First, one holds a "negative schema" regarding the world. Maybe this is the expectation that you will be treated poorly by others, or that others are looking to harm you in some way. Maybe it's simply the expectation that any cats you meet will bring you bad luck. Whatever the case, these negative schema are self-destructive beliefs with the tendency to induce stress in those who hold them.When one interacts with the world, this negative schema provides the framework in which the interaction will unfold. If one talks to a job interviewer with a feeling of positivity, one might have good results. By contrast, if one talks to a job interviewer with a negative schema in place, feeling as if the situation is hopeless, then the meeting will probably go bad. When the meeting does go bad, it reinforces our negative schema. We feel that our expectations have been met, and are thus justified. What we need to come to realize, according to Beck, is that our negative schema actually *cause* the poor outcomes and our own self-destructive behaviors. With conscious recognition, however, these cognitive biases and negative schemas can be overcome, and one can approach the world with feelings of confidence that will ultimately produce good results. Success with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Elsewhere, researchers have had a great deal of success applying CBT to posttraumatic stress disorders. Typically, those suffering from this disorder will feel a sense of generalized anxiety as a result of an earlier, unresolved traumatic event. Generally, this event will have led to the formation of negative schema that can, at least theoretically, be undone with CBT. Mark Reinecke at Northwestern University has conducted a number of recent studies that further verify the utility of CBT in combating posttraumatic stress disorder.CriticismsWhile CBT is one of the most popular therapeutic approaches to come out of clinical psychology in decades, it is not well loved by everyone. There are detractors, for instance, who claim that the relative simplicity and low implementation cost of CBT have led to its becoming more popular than warranted. As evidence for this, they cite the general lack of evidence that CBT can be therapeutically effective against schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. EvaluationCognitive Behavioral Therapy is the attempt to overcome anxiety, depression, and neuroses through the conscious recognition of self-destructive beliefs, with the assumption being that changing this cognition will ultimately change one's behavior, and thusly one's experience with the world.CBT has had success in treating phobias through a technique called exposure therapy that involves gradual exposure to the object of fear, coupled with a systematic repression of the anxiety response.Aaron Beck formalized the cyclical interplay of environment, cognition, and behavior with his "negative triad", a cycle in which one's negative schema affects one's experiences, and those experiences in turn reinforce one's negative schema.While CBT has been shown to be effective in treating posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and phobias, little evidence has been cited