Читать книгу Understanding Mental Health and Counselling - Группа авторов - Страница 36

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is classically dated back to the work of Aaron Beck, whose book Cognitive therapy of depression (Beck et al., 1979) among others, is a foundational text for the field. Others fly the flag for Albert Ellis, a contemporary and colleague of Beck’s, who was arguably the first to coin the tripartite term ‘cognitive behavioural therapy’ in 1969, in an article in the International Journal of Psychiatry (Ellis, 1969). Others still, particularly in Britain, make the case that the foundation of CBT also rested on earlier practices of behaviour therapy developed in the 1950s, which included processes such as desensitisation and exposure and – most controversially – aversion. Some proponents of CBT have also looked back to historical antecedents to argue that current methods are part of a much longer tradition in western thought. Examples include the early twentieth-century rational therapy of the Swiss psychotherapist Paul DuBois, and even the classical writings of Stoic philosophers such as Epictetus (Dryden and Still, 2012). This section of the chapter will outline these different trajectories while summarising some of the emerging historiography on CBT.

Cognitive behavioural therapy A collection of therapeutic techniques that has gained prominence since the 1960s. CBT aims to address maladaptive beliefs and behaviours and is based on both behaviour modification and cognitive approaches. There is often overlap between the use of the terms ‘cognitive behavioural therapy’, ‘cognitive behavioural therapies’ and ‘cognitive therapy’.