To live well in the present, we take direction from the past. Yet, individuals may engage in a variety of behaviors that distort their past and current circumstances, reducing the likelihood of adaptive problem solving and decision making. In this article, we attend to self-deception as one such class of behaviors. Drawing upon research showing both the maladaptive consequences and self-perpetuating nature of self-deception, we propose that self-deception is an understudied risk and maintaining factor for psychopathology, and we introduce a “cognitive-integrity”-based approach that may hold promise for increasing the reach and effectiveness of our existing therapeutic interventions. Pending empirical validation of this theoretically-informed approach, we posit that patients may become more informed and autonomous agents in their own therapeutic growth by becoming more honest with themselves.
Learning of Behavior Trees for Autonomous Agents
