IANAE but the way CBT was explained to was that thought, emotions, and actions exist in a fully connected, bidirectional causal graph; not that any one particular node was primary over the others. The intention (I thought) was to try and take the "thought <> emotions" edge and apply some filtering to the "thoughts < emotions" flow, so that the relationship was less reactive and didn't lead to spiraling, ie. replacing:

"bad emotions -> negative thoughts -> worse emotions -> worse thoughts -> ..."

with:

"bad emotions -> reflective, moderated thoughts -> equally bad or slightly better emotions -> reflective, moderated thoughts -> ..."