Fear and Melancholy: Exploring Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy in Connection to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
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This article focuses on the similarities between Sterne’s narrative strategies and the supporting ideas embedded in Tristram Shandy, and those found in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) developed by the twentieth-century American psychiatrist Aaron T Beck. In particular, Sterne’s engagement with the language system, its arbitrariness, the relationship between signifier and signified, and their connection to cognition aligns with the core assumptions of Beck’s CBT. In this investigation, Robert Burton serves as an important bridge for revealing the narrative’s cognitive impact, particularly in ways that closely align with CBT. The central inquiry addressed in this article aims to explore how the thought and intellectual foundations of these authors, from different fields and historical periods, could share such common features, and what significance this approach holds for narrative studies. This research considered the concept of depression as a mental illness, including its premised causes and symptoms, as a key clue in tracing the roots of their resemblance. Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), which was broadly adopted as an intertextual reference in Tristram Shandy, and his discussions about fear and imagination in melancholy, provide a foundation for understanding the intersection between Sterne’s narrative structure and Beck’s CBT. By exploring Burton’s discussion of fear and imagination in relation to melancholy alongside Sterne’s novel, this article ultimately argues that Sterne’s unique narrative demonstrates the potential for a cognitive restructuring function similar to that of CBT and that further research on Burton’s work is needed to clarify this narrative function.
Abstract
This article focuses on the similarities between Sterne’s narrative strategies and the supporting ideas embedded in Tristram Shandy, and those found in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) developed by the twentieth-century American psychiatrist Aaron T Beck. In particular, Sterne’s engagement with the language system, its arbitrariness, the relationship between signifier and signified, and their connection to cognition aligns with the core assumptions of Beck’s CBT. In this investigation, Robert Burton serves as an important bridge for revealing the narrative’s cognitive impact, particularly in ways that closely align with CBT. The central inquiry addressed in this article aims to explore how the thought and intellectual foundations of these authors, from different fields and historical periods, could share such common features, and what significance this approach holds for narrative studies. This research considered the concept of depression as a mental illness, including its premised causes and symptoms, as a key clue in tracing the roots of their resemblance. Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), which was broadly adopted as an intertextual reference in Tristram Shandy, and his discussions about fear and imagination in melancholy, provide a foundation for understanding the intersection between Sterne’s narrative structure and Beck’s CBT. By exploring Burton’s discussion of fear and imagination in relation to melancholy alongside Sterne’s novel, this article ultimately argues that Sterne’s unique narrative demonstrates the potential for a cognitive restructuring function similar to that of CBT and that further research on Burton’s work is needed to clarify this narrative function.