Why the Cognitive Faculty Assignment Approach (CFAA)?

In a previous article, entitled, The Cognitive Faculty Assignment Approach (CFAA) and Imagination-Focused Therapy (IFT), we talked about how complex our whole organism is. We talked about how it all started with one cell that differentiated into tissues, then organs, and then organ systems. And we talked about how our whole organism functions both as a whole and at the same time, one cell at a time. We also talked about how every one of the functions of our body is precisely controlled by the same mechanism that controls the whole organism.[1] And we then talked about how we can harness this same mechanism and assign it to several functions that we perform outside of our body. This is because this mechanism that permits such precise control of every single function of our body is closely linked to and works with and through our cognitive functions.[2] And through our cognitive functions we can access this same mechanism and use it for both significant aspects of our life and for what we might consider to be mundane things. In this current article, we are going to briefly introduce the Cognitive Faculty Assignment Approach (CFAA) and illustrate the rationale for its use.

What is the Cognitive Faculty Assignment Approach (CFAA)?

First an “assignment,[3]” is a task, a duty, or a chore. To assign then means to allocate, to allot, to give, and to set. It also means to appropriate, to designate, to set aside, and to set apart.

“Approach[4],” is the way of dealing with something. It is an attitude, a perspective, and an outlook.

The Cognitive Faculty Assignment Approach (CFAA) is then an attitude toward our tasks, our chores, and toward our activities as they relate to our cognitive faculty. It is a new way for us to go about the different things we must do, all these many things we have on our calendar, all these patients we are scheduled to see, all these meetings we are scheduled to attend, and all the personal things we deal with.

From the moment we wake up in the morning, until we retire for bed, there are countless tasks, activities, and chores for us to do. Some are emerging, others are urgent, some are routine, while others are either overdue, unexpected, or anticipated. Some of these chores we may look forward to. Some others we may dread. And some others we may be indifferent about. Regardless of how we feel about them, they are in our mind. They seek our attention. They are in the back of our head and even when we try suppressing them, they only shift to our preconscious or unconscious mind and continue to drive us. They just do not go away.

Here’s Ann’s example, using her own words:

“I wake up at 4am and my alarm is the baby crying because she wants milk. As I start to breastfeed her, I can hear my 6-year-old boy, Mike, screaming, and before I can even move, he’s inside my bedroom, crying his eyes out, scared because he just had a nightmare. He’s sleepwalking, and no matter what I do, he’s just not snapping out of it. My husband, Michael, hears all the noise, and wakes up, irritable because he’s only had 2 hours of sleep having gotten home at 2am after a 12-hour shift as an ER nurse. “Take Mike out of here, damn it!” he shouts, and I got it. I had been sleeping since 12am, he started sleeping at 2am and he must be up by 6am to start his day all over again.

No matter what we have tried, we have not been able to figure out what would help Mike with his nightmares. Whatever all the doctors or therapists say, nothing works. I move us to the kitchen to finish breastfeeding the baby, while Mike follows me still crying. Finally, my husband gets up to try to get Mike back to his bed and this doesn’t work, but he does try to help. By the time I am done feeding, burping, changing, and putting the baby back down to sleep, I have to relieve Michael so he can get some sleep because he has to get up to go to work soon. I lay down with Mike, in his tiny bed, worsening my already bad back, for the next hour, waiting for the time for me to wake up and start dealing with the next set of struggles of the day.  Our 13-year-old daughter, Melissa, loves to stay up late at night but never likes to get up in the morning. It is a drag. I have to go to her room so many times, while I am taking care of Mike, and the baby, and preparing breakfast, and getting myself ready to get to work… Michael is getting ready and must drive Melissa to school before he makes it to his daytime job. Before I even wake up, I am tired. By the time I make it through the bedroom door I am already exhausted, and it’s only 7am. It takes me about one hour to drop the baby, and drop Mike, and then another hour to get to work. By the time I get to work at 9am, I have several emails, calls to return, and a list of patients waiting to be seen. Then there are the managers, co-workers, and everyone else who is complaining about something.  I’ve had enough!”

Bottom line, it takes something to not get overwhelmed, stressed, worried, anxious, upset, or on edge. It takes something to not feel so tired, resentful, exhausted, and grow cynical, and even become detached. It indeed takes something to not experience a sense of dissatisfaction, a sense of being stuck, or a sense of “this life has no logic to it,” or “why do things have to be so hard?”

Unfortunately, Ann’s example is more the norm than the exception. As you can see, Ann has been experiencing exhaustion, and depersonalization, and she does not feel too empowered or effective, which is related to a feeling of a lack of sense of personal accomplishment. And this is the triad of burnout[5], a condition that affects almost 70% of us, clinicians, and that has been increasing further since COVID[6]. What is clear is that Ann along with her husband, Michael, have been trying an approach to deal with all these chores, tasks, and activities, in a way that has left them both exhausted, in a rat race, and not being able to be there for their clients, for themselves, or for life. It is obvious that they need a new approach. Something that may be worth trying, and this is the why of the Cognitive Faculty Assignment Approach (CFAA).

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[1] Farley, Alistair, Ella McLafferty, and Charles Hendry. “Cells, tissues, organs and systems.” Nursing Standard (through 2013) 26.52 (2012): 40.

[2] Azeri, Siyaves. “Conceptual cognitive organs: Toward an historical-materialist theory of scientific knowledge.” Philosophia 41.4 (2013): 1095-1123.

[3] “Assignment Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assignment.

[4] “Approach Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/approach.

[5] Weber, Andreas, and A. Jaekel-Reinhard. “Burnout syndrome: a disease of modern societies?.” Occupational medicine 50.7 (2000).

[6] Joshi, Gunjan, and Ginni Sharma. “Burnout: A risk factor amongst mental health professionals during COVID-19.” Asian journal of psychiatry 54 (2020): 102300.