Book recommendation (it’s long but worth it): Koutstaal, Wilma (2012) The Agile Mind; Oxford University Press: New York
For me, this book strengthens the case against simplistic dichotomies that are pervasive within the field of clinical psychology: the good (authentic/real/rational/intentional) and the bad (inauthentic/false/irrational/reactive). Such divisions are steeped in ideology and are fundamentally anti-scientific.
The scientific mind thinks in terms of continua. Fuzzy boundaries rule. Context matters.
The ideological mind likes to divide the world into exclusive categories. Purity matters.
Yeah, yeah - that's just what I did, what with my "scientific mind" and ideological mind". However, these should be considered "ideal types", which rarely exist in their pure form. Categories and ideal types can help us see and appreciate stuff we otherwise may not have noticed, but it's important to remember they can also prevent us from seeing and appreciating other things.
In that spirit, here's a quote from The Agile Mind:
“Although inappropriate reliance on more automatic, heuristic modes of processing has frequently been shown to lead to error and biases, it is essential, indeed vital, that we refrain from any temptation to unilaterally characterize less directed, more intuitive, spontaneous, or nondeliberative modes of processing as inherently pernicious. Context here is extremely important, both the extreme of too enthusiastically and unequivocally endorsing the virtues of deliberate thought, and the extreme of too strongly endorsing the benefits of undirected and "undeliberate" thought must be avoided. ...we need to more fully understand how they work with and complement one another, in dynamic and ongoing moment-to-moment interchange and mutual support." (p22)