On November 24, 2024, legacy media outlet The Economist published a piece stating, “Of Donald Trump’s nominees to high office, few are more suspicious of the government they are pegged to join than Tulsi Gabbard. The Democrat-turned-Republican warns of a ‘slow-rolling coup’ by ‘the entire permanent Washington machine.”
Presumably, Trump chose Gabbard as his pick for director of national intelligence as a means to an end of altering how the so-called “deep state” functions within the United States (U.S.). For instance, on November 20, 2024, mainstream media outlet ABC News reported:
Gabbard, a former congresswoman who also served in the National Guard, has long railed against the so-called “deep state” Trump has blamed for undermining him in his first term and she’s called Democrats a “cabal of warmongers.”
Since announcing Gabbard as his candidate for what corporate media outlet NBC news termed as a position for the “country’s top spy,” I’ve observed people on social media, as well as having listened to people in my personal and professional life, applauding Gabbard’s nomination.
In a blogpost entitled Spooky Business (January 5, 2025), I provided my opinion about the potential of Gabbard serving the function of little more than a component of a PSYOP (psychological operations). After all, she reportedly served a PSYOP role in the military.
Aside from the fact that I remain rationally skeptical of spooks (government intelligence agents) and glowies (current and former employees of national intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement entities), I wonder about Gabbard’s cold and hot positions on sociopolitical matters.
As an example, Mockingbird media outlet CNN reported on January 10, 2025, “President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to serve as director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is voicing support for a key government surveillance authority she once sought to dismantle.”
For context, on January 10, 2025, lamestream media outlet FOX News reported that Gabbard “previously opposed FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] section 702 re-authorization while serving as a Democrat in the House of Representatives.”
According to one source, “Section 702 allows intelligence agencies to collect the phone calls, emails, text messages, and other communications of almost any non-American located outside of the United States without a warrant […] but Americans’ communications are ‘inevitably’ captured too.”
In one instance, Gabbard appears to be hot in her protest of surveillance against U.S. citizens. In another moment, she seems to be cold on the matter and merely grants anti-constitutional authority to an already civil rights-abusing government apparatus.
When contemplating my dislike of this matter, not Gabbard, I thought it may be useful to demonstrate a psychoeducational lesson for other people about how not to disturb oneself. This is accomplished through use of the ABC model of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).
In a blogpost entitled Traditional ABC Model (January 9, 2025), I provided a prerequisite illustration of the ABC model more so than I intend on demonstrating herein. Therefore, I encourage you to review that post before continuing forward with the current entry.
Presuming that either (1) you’ve read Traditional ABC Model, (2) you already maintain some familiarity with the ABC model, or (3) you don’t care what I’ve said elsewhere, because you’re here—so get on with it, Deric!—I’ll now address the cold and hot possibilities related to Gabbard.
According to one REBT source:
There is a broad consensus in the REBT literature (e.g., Ellis, 1994) that IBs [irrational beliefs]/RBs [rational beliefs] refer to evaluative or ‘‘hot’’ cognitions, and therefore serve an evaluative function. Abelson and Rosenberg (1958) use the terms ‘‘hot’’ and ‘‘cold’’ cognitions to make the distinction between appraising (hot) and knowing (cold).
My Activating event in regard to Gabbard concerns her apparent recent departure from a previous position regarding government overreach. In REBT, the narrowing of a lengthy Activating event descriptor, pertaining to the matter deemed most important to a person is called “the critical A.”
My critical A is that Gabbard ostensibly supports authoritarianism. In terms of cold cognition, I’ve merely expressed what I presume to know about what has occurred. In and of itself, there’s no Activating event-Consequence connection whereby I become upset from a cold thought.
Rather, if I wasn’t proficient with the practice of REBT and I disturbed myself with an unhelpful assumption about the critical A, there’d be a Belief-Consequence connection that resulted in self-upset. For the sake of demonstration, let’s suppose that I used an irrational Belief.
Imagine that I unfavorably Believed, “Gabbard shouldn’t betray her oath to support and defend the Constitution and I can’t stand this, because it’s awful that she’s backtracked on her prior FISA stance, so she’s a worthless cabinet pick!” This IB would constitute a hot cognition.
According to the same REBT source:
Cold cognitions (Lazarus & Smith, 1988) refer to the way people develop representations of relevant circumstances (i.e., activating events), whereas hot cognitions refer to the way people process and evaluate cold cognitions (David & McMahon, 2001; David, Schnur, & Belloiu, 2002).
Given my imagined hot Belief about Gabbard, regarding the cold representation of the critical A, one can envision a hot personal narrative as something akin to a burning coal. Holding the hot ember would be unpleasant, though merely observing it would allow my hand to remain cold.
According to the same REBT source:
Cold cognitions are often analyzed in terms of surface cognitions that are easy to access consciously, and deep cognitions that are consciously accessible yet more difficult to access.
Surface cognitions, often called automatic thoughts, refer to descriptions and inferences (e.g., expectancies, attributions), whereas deep cognitions refer to core beliefs (i.e., schemas) and other meaning-based representations (for details, see Eysenck & Keane, 2000).
Suppose that Gabbard ostensibly supports authoritarianism (critical A) and my cold cognition is something like, “Oh great, another politician oppresses U.S. citizens.” That automatic surface representation doesn’t result in self-upset, because I’m used to the oppression by now.
According to the same REBT source:
Hot cognitions, on the other hand, also called appraisals or evaluative cognitions, refer to how cold cognitions are processed in terms of their relevance for personal wellbeing (for details, see Ellis, 1994; Lazarus, 1991).
My aforementioned hot cognition serves as an irrational Belief which is precisely the sort of attitude that would cause self-disturbance. This is because I didn’t merely think of Gabbard and her reported action (representation); I formed an unfavorable appraisal of her and the matter.
According to the same REBT source:
Consequently, during a specific activating event, there seem to be four different possibilities for how cold and hot cognitions regarding the activating event are related: (1) distorted representation of the event/negatively appraised; (2) nondistorted representation/negatively appraised; (3) distorted representation/nonnegatively appraised; (4) nondistorted representation/nonnegatively appraised.
Respectively, here are the four cold and hot possibilities related to my Gabbard example:
(1) “Oh great, another politician oppresses U.S. citizens. Gabbard shouldn’t betray her oath to support and defend the Constitution and I can’t stand this, because it’s awful that she’s backtracked on her prior FISA stance, so she’s a worthless cabinet pick!”
(2) “Politicians often change their minds. Gabbard shouldn’t betray her oath to support and defend the Constitution and I can’t stand this, because it’s awful that she’s backtracked on her prior FISA stance, so she’s a worthless cabinet pick!”
(3) “Oh great, another politician oppresses U.S. citizens. This appears to be politics as usual.”
(4) “Politicians often change their minds. This appears to be politics as usual.”
When considering the cold and hot possibilities, I’d prefer to use a nondistorted representation/nonnegatively appraised cognition (4). This is the most adaptive assumption, or RB, that doesn’t cause an unpleasant Consequence for me.
Admittedly, a distorted representation/nonnegatively appraised cognition (3) wouldn’t generate self-disturbance for me. However, #4 has a slight advantage, because I experience relief from it. Alternatively, #3 leads to disappointment. Thus, I choose relief over disappointment in this case.
It’s important to bear in mind that from an REBT perspective people have choices about what to believe and how to respond to displeasing events. Helpfully, choosing a plausible narrative – and not one steeped in delusion – is more in alignment with personal interests and goals.
Given this demonstration of the ABC model, how might this psychoeducational lesson impact your life? When encountering undesirable events, what will you choose to do? Will you respond irrationally? Or will you consider plausible alternative beliefs? The choice is yours.
If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.
As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.
At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
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