Vittorio Filippo Guidano (4 August 1944, Rome, Italy – 31 August 1999, Buenos Aires, Argentina) was an Italian neuropsychiatrist, creator of the cognitive procedural systemic model and contributor to constructivist post-rationalist cognitive therapy. His cognitive post-rationalist model was influenced by attachment theory, evolutionary epistemology, complex systems theory, and the prevalence of abstract mental processes proposed by Friedrich Hayek. Guidano conceived the personal system as a self-organized entity, in constant development.
Among his published writings are the books Complexity of the Self (1987) and The Self in Progress (1991). He was the first president of the Italian Society of Behavioural and Cognitive Therapy (SITCC) and he co-founded the Institute of Post-Rationalist Psychology and Psychotherapy (IPRA). Guidano's work has been called "the most important influence" on Jeffrey Young's schema therapy. He also influenced the elaboration of other constructivist psychotherapies such as coherence therapy.
Post-rationalist cognitive therapy Post-rationalist cognitive therapy is a type of constructivist cognitive therapy that was created by Guidano in the 1980s and 1990s.Guidano, V. (1995). "A constructivist outline of human knowing processes". In: M. Mahoney (Ed.) Cognitive and constructive psychotherapies (pp. 89–102). Springer.Guidano, V. F. (1987). Complexity of the self: A developmental approach to psychopathology and therapy. New York: Guilford.Guidano, V. F. (1991). The self in process: Toward a post-rationalist cognitive therapy. New York: Guilford.Guidano, V. F., & Liotti, G. (1983). Cognitive processes and emotional disorders. New York: Guilford.
In the early 1980s, Guidano published the book Cognitive Processes and Emotional Disorders (1983) with his colleague Giovanni Liotti. In this book the authors still adhered to and used the cognitive restructuring techniques created by Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck, although they added to them their own theoretical model about evolutionary development from childhood, influenced by the Jean Piaget's genetic epistemology and John Bowlby's attachment theory.León, A. & Tamayo, D. (2011). "Post-rationalist cognitive psychotherapy: an intervention model focused on the process of identity construction". Katharsis, 12, 37–58.Dodet, M. (2021). "The case formulation in the post-rationalist constructivist model: commentary on chapter 'Strengths and limitations of case formulation in constructivist cognitive behavioral therapies. CBT Case Formulation as Therapeutic Process (pp. 191–199). Cham: Springer.
This model, which the authors call the "evolutionary-structural" approach to cognitive therapy, stated that human beings form certain knowledge schemes from childhood that are affective in nature and more central than propositional knowledge schemes in linguistic format. Central affective knowledge schemes are formed from attachment ties with parents or caregivers, and establish certain biased ways of perceiving the world, perceiving oneself, and relating to others.Rhodes, J. (2014). Narrative CBT: Distinctive Features. Routledge.Vallis, T.M., Howes, J.L. & Miller, P.C. (Eds.) (1991). The Challenge of Cognitive Therapy: Applications to Nontraditional Populations. Plenum.
Guidano later incorporated the influence of Donald T. Campbell and Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology (the study of knowledge from a biological perspective), complex systems theory, Humberto Maturana's radical constructivism.De Pascale, A. (2019). Validity' of Vittorio Guidano in the psychotherapy of the twenty-first century". Revista de Psicoterapia, 30(112), 91–102. and Jerome Bruner's narrative psychology.Guidano, V. F. (2007). Psicoterapia cognitiva post-razionalista (notes and comments on the text by Quinones Bergeret A.T., in Italian). Milan: FrancoAngeli.
Autopoiesis
Guidano borrows the notion of autopoiesis, originally developed by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela.De Pascale, A., Quiñones, A. & Cimbolli, P. (2016). "Post-rationalist psychotherapy academy today: research and clinical practice". Rivista di Psichiatria, 51(1), 2–10.
Autopoiesis is the self-organizing nature of living beings, which means they have autonomy. Maturana and Varela defined autopoiesis as the characteristic of a system that maintains and reproduces itself through its own processes. A system is autopoietic if it is capable of producing and maintaining the components that constitute it.Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1987). The tree of knowledge. Boston: Shambhala.Varela, F. J. (1979). Principles of biological autonomy. New York: North Holland.
These systems have distinct boundaries that separate them from their environment, but they are open to interactions with the environment, such as the exchange of energy or matter. These interactions are regulated by the system itself.
The key idea is that the system's internal processes are organized in a way that they produce the system's own components in a self-sustaining cycle. This makes the system autonomous, as it doesn't rely on external forces for its reproduction.
In their view, living organisms are examples of autopoietic systems because they continually produce and regenerate the components necessary for their existence, such as proteins, cells, and organs. Vittorio Guidano extended the concept of autopoiesis to the realm of psychology and cognitive science. He applied the theory to human psychological development, suggesting that the mind itself is an autopoietic system. According to Guidano, our subjective experiences and the meaning we derive from them are generated by the mind through an ongoing self-organization of cognitive processes.
Guidano also argued that self-identity is formed through this self-referential process. The way we perceive ourselves is constructed by an internal, dynamic system that adapts and responds to both internal and external stimuli.Maturana, H. R. (1988). "Reality: The search for objectivity or the quest for a compelling argument". The Irish Journal of Psychology, 9(1), 25–82.
Two levels of human experience
Guidano and Liotti distinguish two levels of human knowledge: the tacit level of sensorimotor, imaginative, and emotional knowledge, and the explicit level of linguistic and propositional knowledge.
: This level represents the conscious, verbalizable aspects of human experience. It includes thoughts, beliefs, memories, and emotions that individuals are aware of and able to express verbally. The explicit level is characterized by language and cognitive processes such as problem-solving and logical reasoning. It encompasses the narratives and stories that individuals construct to make sense of their experiences and identities.
: In contrast, the tacit level represents the unconscious, non-verbal aspects of human experience. It includes underlying assumptions, implicit memories, emotional reactions, and bodily sensations that may not be consciously recognized or articulated by individuals. The tacit level is characterized by automatic, non-conscious processes that influence individuals' perceptions, behaviors, and emotional responses. It encompasses tacit schemas, scripts, and patterns of relating that are formed through early experiences, attachment and social interactions. The tacit level is hierarchically supra-ordered, that is, it orders and determines the possibilities that the more superficial explicit schemes take. Tacit knowledge structures are "core ordering processes", unconscious rules that organize current experience and anticipate subsequent experience.Guidano, V. F. (1995). "A constructivist outline of human knowing processes". In M. J. Mahoney (Ed.), Cognitive and constructive psychotherapies: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 89–102). Springer, p. 92.Raskin, J. D. & Bridges, S. K. (2004). Studies in meaning 2: Bridging the personal and social in constructivist psychology. New York: Pace University Press, p. 274. Furthermore, tacit processes do not appear in consciousness, that is, they determine explicit cognition without being included in it.Balbi, J. (2015). "Adolescence, order through fluctuations and psychopathology. A post-rationalist conception of mental disorders and their treatment on the grounds of chaos theory". Chaos and Complexity Letters, 9, 2, 85–105.
Guidano emphasized the dynamic interaction between these two levels of experience. He argued that while individuals may be consciously aware of their explicit thoughts and emotions, their tacit experiences and emotional responses often operate beneath conscious awareness, shaping their perceptions and behaviors in subtle ways.Guidano, V. F. (1991). The self in process: Toward a post-rationalist cognitive therapy. New York: Guilford.
Guidano's therapeutic approach aimed to help clients explore and integrate both explicit and tacit aspects of their experience, facilitating greater self-awareness, emotional regulation, and personal growth.
Constructivist epistemology
Guidano's constructivist epistemology means that, unlike the cognitive therapies of authors such as Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, the post-rationalist cognitive-processual systemic approach, like other constructivist therapies, does not assume that the therapist has a superior access to reality than the patient and can identify irrational thought processes in the patient so that the patient can correct them.
Instead, both the patient and the therapist are constructors of meanings that must be reconstructed throughout the therapy. These meanings refer to the patient's life situation and, in later stages of the therapy, to his or her life history.Guidano, V. F. (1995). "Constructivist psychotherapy: A theoretical framework". In R. A. Neimeyer & M. J. Mahoney (Eds.), Constructivism in Psychotherapy (pp. 93–108). Washington: American Psychological Association. Post-rationalist therapy is therefore historical in nature.Sanders, D. & Willis, F. (2005). Cognitive Therapy. An Introduction (2nd Ed.). Sage Publications, p. 19.
Guidano states that the therapist should not propose to the patient a correct way of thinking or interpreting his life situations, nor should he give the impression that the therapist knows a way of living that, if the patient adopted, would allow him to stop suffering forever. The therapist should not judge or directly criticize the patient's statements or the thoughts he expresses. In fact, the therapist is a "strategically oriented disturber" who seeks to increase the patient's awareness of the tacit rules by which he organizes his experience. The way in which the patient interprets therapeutic interventions does not depend only on the therapist but, above all, on the self-organizing properties of the patient's self system itself. Therefore, the interventions cannot be "instructive," but are disturbances that trigger the spontaneous reorganization of the patient's meaning systems.Arnkoff, D. B., & Glass, C. R. (1992). "Cognitive therapy and psychotherapy integration". In D. F. Freedheim (Ed.), History of psychotherapy: A century of change (pp. 657–694). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Worrell, M. (2023). CBT and Existential Psychology: Philosophy, Psychology and Therapy. Wiley Blackwell, pp. 138-140.
Another aspect is that the patient is sought to increase his awareness of those aspects of his experience that, through self-deception, he leaves outside his consciousness. The therapist should therefore not encourage the defensive exclusion of certain areas of the patient's experience or point out to the patient that his interpretations of it are wrong.