Robert Rocco Cottone (born January 28, 1952) is a psychologist, ethicist, counselor and poet and has been a professor in the Department of Counseling and Family Therapy at the University of Missouri–St.

He has been widely cited for his later work on advanced theories of psychotherapy, and he has been rated as having one of the highest publishing records among his peers.

This emphasis dates back to Freud, who defined an individual "psyche" — an internal non-physical aspect of self that is the framework for dealing with conflicts within the personality.

Subsequent approaches to mental health primarily addressed individual problems as originating inside the person.

Cottone's contribution to counseling and psychotherapy, along with other social theorists, was to apply relationship theory (focusing on interaction between people) to processes that were previously viewed as largely non-relational or individual.

[7] He developed a relational philosophy of religion, providing a postmodern definition of belief: "acting with others as if some socially defined concept represents truth".

The group members believed an alien spaceship followed the Hale-Bopp comet and was to clear the earth of humanity (recycling).

The idea of bracketed absolute truth (consensuality) explains how communities of believers (whether religious or not) hold fast to doctrine for better or for worse.

In 2007, reacting to several personal crises and a disagreement over an annulment with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis, he founded the Church of Belief Science.

The founding of the Church of Belief Science represents the establishment of the first coherently designed and acknowledged fully postmodern religion.

The Church of Belief Science philosophy applies postmodern theory (specifically social constructivism) to human relations in a religious context.

He argued that ancient religions are based on negative premises (e.g., sin, suffering, condemnation) and he made the case for a positive philosophy as a foundation for religious practice.

But Cottone concluded that ethical standards must be accepted in a profession of faith, or beliefs that are potentially harmful to humanity may garner support within a community at the expense of some or all other people.