LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

TO THE EDITOR: We are pleased to see continuing interest in psychotherapies among readers of the Journal. In response to the comments of Drs. Sareen and Skakum on the use of transference in cognitive behavior therapy, we agree that cognitive behavior therapists can productively ex-plore the influence of early relationships on patients ’ core be-liefs and the impact of these core beliefs on the cognitive and affective processing of interactions with the therapist. In fact, our cognitive behavior therapy formulation provides several examples in which the patient’s experience of interactions with the therapist and the association of this experience to his longstanding core beliefs might enter into the work of treat-ment. Therapists of different orientations may use similar concepts and even similar techniques in service of very differ-ent interventions. Yet despite the frequent usefulness of ex