Although the core belief construct is central in A. T. Beck’s cognitive theory, little empirical research has been conducted to date to establish its psychometric properties as well as the way it explains manifestations of psychopathology. The aims of this study were to develop and provide the first evidence of validity and reliability of a new measure of core beliefs that quantifies negative core beliefs about the self (nCB-S) and negative core beliefs about others (nCB-O). Results indicated that this measure has adequate internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Factor analyses confirmed that nCB-S and nCB-O fall on separate dimensions, and they provided preliminary evidence that nCB-S can be separated further into (a) helplessness/inferiority, (b) helplessness/vulnerability, (c) unlovability, and (d) worthlessness. Consistent with expectations, the scores on the nCB-S and nCB-O scales correlated positively with reports of negative experiences in childhood, attachment styles, anxiety, and depression. These preliminary results suggest that core beliefs can be measured in a reliable and valid manner and that the instrument proposed in this article can be used in studies designed to validate aspects of A. T. Beck’s cognitive theory.

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The goal of this article is to develop a theory about the evaluation process in order to offer a perspective that is potentially capable of parsimoniously explaining a series of phenomena. I argue that not only is categorical thinking shared by humans and other animals, but also certain types of categorization ("what is something?"; "what end to seek?"; "by what means?"; "was there success in accomplishing the end?"), which I understand to be aligned in a mat of categorizations, constituting what I call the basic evaluation process. I hypothesize that within this evaluation process there are five options for basic categorizations pathways (BCP), namely: "identification of patterns in the novelty"; "acquisition of the benefit", "promotion of the good of the other"; "elimination of the threat"; and "escape the threat". Thus, the basic evaluation process would follow a certain path depending on the type of categorization "what is something?" performed ("a novelty", "a benefit", "an ally (or potential ally) in difficulty", "a threat that can be eliminated", or "a threat that cannot be eliminated"). Finally, I defend the idea that if the mental architecture of humans is composed of ancestral structures such as BCPs, it is then possible to locate BCP as being at the root of innumerable subjective phenomena of our species.

In this chapter, we propose that pathologies can be understood as chronic excess or lack of emotions, which in essence, in our view, refer to the presence of “vicious” or frequent lack of evaluations about reality; which would generally occur due to the absence of wisdom or rationality. We also suggest that true happiness, to be experienced consistently, depends on putting into practice knowledge that reflects reality reasonably. In this sense, we hypothesize that the essence of pathologies is associated with the absence of a level of knowledge that reflects reality reasonably well or recurrent failures to act based on this knowledge, that is, lack of the habit of acting rationally; and that the understanding and pursuit of true happiness, in turn, can serve as a shortcut to exit the psychopathological condition, as (1) it provides greater engagement in the therapeutic process, as it would be the kind of pleasure that every human being ultimately seeks; and (2) because the pursuit of true happiness leads us to be more and more successful in our interactions with reality, feeling appropriate emotions for each context, instead of feeling, or not feeling, certain emotions chronically.

In this article, we seek to develop a new therapeutic path, which we call Happiness-Focused Therapy (HFT) for the promotion of mental health and, in particular, increasingly frequent experiences of happiness. This, from a new theory, which is based on Aristotelian ethics and evolutionary science. In this sense, the HFT was designed to focus on what is special about us humans: the ability that we all have to understand reality more and more accurately (acquisition of wisdom) and to act based on what we know so far (rational act) in view of the increasingly frequent production of good consequences, of which we can be proud of having been the causative agent through our choices, pride that we understand to be the true happiness. With this in mind, we propose that the HFT consists of four stages of treatment, each with its main objective (expansion of wisdom, acquisition of the habit of acting rationally, elaboration of a happy life project, and elaboration of a routine in favor of the realization of a happy life project), and that the patient must go through all of them, but according to the rhythm of the evolution of their treatment (minimum of nine sessions in total); and also that each stage has its structure of sessions fixed (for better use of time).