DEFINITION:
The phrase “cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)” refers to a psychosocial form of treatment for the symptoms associated with various personality disorders, especially anxiety and depression.
What makes CBT distinctive as a psychotherapy is its emphasis on changing patients’ distorted thoughts, beliefs, and intellectual attitudes, as opposed to attempting to improve emotional regulation directly.
ETYMOLOGY:
The phrase CBT, and the therapy itself, was developed by Aaron T. Beck (1921–2021) during the 1960s and early 1970s, culminating in his textbook Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders, published in 1975.
The English adjective “cognitive” is attested from the sixteenth century, while the related noun, “cognition,” is about a century older. “Cognition” derives, via the Middle English noun cognicioun, from the Classical Latin noun cognitio, cognitionis, meaning “study,” “knowledge,” or “acquaintance,” which is associated with the verb cognosco, cognoscere, meaning “to learn,” “to know,” or “to become acquainted with.”
The English adjective “behavioral” is related to the noun “behavior” and the verb, “to behave.” The latter, which is attested from the fifteenth century, derives from the Middle English verb behaven, meaning “to behave.” Behaven is, moreover, connected to the Middle English verb holden and the Old English verb healdan—which is, in turn, akin to the Old High German verb haltan—all of which mean “to hold.”
The English noun “therapy” is attested from the nineteenth century. It is a form of the New Latin term therapia, therapiae (a New Latin word is one that is coined in recent times from Classical Latin or ancient Greek lexical units). The term therapia derives from the Greek noun therapeia, therapeiai, meaning “waiting on,” “attending,” “nurturing,” or “curing.” The noun therapeia is connected with the verb therapeuo, therapeuein, meaning “to wait on,” “to attend,” “to serve,” “to treat,” “to heal,” or “to cure.”
DISCUSSION:
Since its introduction by Aaron T. Beck in the 1960s,CBT has steadily grown in popularity as an effective form of talk therapy for the treatment of a wide variety of mental illnesses, especially personality disorders and other conditions characterized by anxiety and depression.
Today, CBT is perhaps the most-popular type of behavioral therapy on the market.
Unlike traditional forms of talk therapy, which mostly focus on probing patients’ dreams and analyzing the unconscious meanings of their symptoms, CBT emphasizes the cognitive side of patients’ actions and personalities, that is to say, their thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes.
The underlying premise of CBT as a theory is the concept that false beliefs and distorted thoughts play a crucial role in the development of many mental illnesses, and that treatment of such illnesses is most successful when it undertakes to correct such mistaken perceptions.
The success of CBT appears to be well earned. Empirical studies have shown that CBT alone is at least as effective as psychoactive medications in treating anxiety, depression, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), tics, eating disorders, and borderline personality disorder (BPD), at least in their less-severe forms.
For more severe forms of the foregoing conditions—such as major or chronic depression—CBT is probably most effective if combined with appropriate psychoactive medications.
Some research also suggests that CBT is more effective in children and adolescents than in adults.