It works to solve current problems and change unhelpful thinking and behavior. The name refers to behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, and therapy based upon a combination of basic behavioral and cognitive principles. Most therapists working with patients dealing with anxiety and depression use a blend of cognitive and behavioral therapy. This technique acknowledges that there may be behaviors that cannot be controlled through rational thought, but rather emerge based on prior conditioning from the environment and other external and/or internal stimuli. CBT is "problem focused" (undertaken for specific problems) and "action oriented" (therapist tries to assist the client in selecting specific strategies to help address those problems), or directive in its therapeutic approach. It is different from the more traditional, psychoanalytical approach, where therapists look for the unconscious meaning behind the behaviors and then diagnose the patient. Instead, behaviorists believe that disorders, such as depression, have to do with the relationship between a feared stimulus and an avoidance response, resulting in a conditioned fear, much like Ivan Pavlov. Cognitive therapists believed that conscious thoughts could influence a person’s behavior all on its own. Ultimately, the two theories were combined to create what is now known as cognitive behavioral therapy.
CBT is effective for a variety of conditions, including mood, anxiety, personality, eating, addiction, dependence, tic, and psychotic disorders. Many CBT treatment programs have been evaluated for symptom-based diagnoses and been favored over approaches such as psychodynamic treatments. However, other researchers have questioned the validity of such claims to superiority over other treatments.
Precursors of certain fundamental aspects of CBT have been identified in various ancient philosophical traditions, particularly Stoicism. Stoic philosophers, particularly Epictetus, believed logic could be used to identify and discard false beliefs that lead to destructive emotions, which has influenced the way modern cognitive-behavioral therapists identify cognitive distortions that contribute to depression and anxiety. For example, Aaron T. Beck's original treatment manual for depression states, "The philosophical origins of cognitive therapy can be traced back to the Stoic philosophers". Another example of Stoic influence on cognitive theorists is Epictetus on Albert Ellis. A key philosophical figure who also influenced the development of CBT was John Stuart Mill.
The modern roots of CBT can be traced to the development of behavior therapy in the early 20th century, the development of cognitive therapy in the 1960s, and the subsequent merging of the two. Groundbreaking work of behaviorism began with Watson's and Rayner's studies of conditioning in 1920. Behaviorally-centered therapeutic approaches appeared as early as 1924 with Mary Cover Jones' work on the unlearning of fears in children. These were the antecedents of the development of Joseph Wolpe's behavioral therapy in the 1950s. It was the work of Wolpe and Watson, which was based on Ivan Pavlov's work on learning and conditioning, that influenced Hans Eysenck and Arnold Lazarus to develop new behavioral therapy techniques based on classical conditioning.
During the 1950s and 1960s, behavioral therapy became widely utilized by researchers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, who were inspired by the behaviorist learning theory of Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, and Clark L. Hull. In Britain, this work was mostly focused on the neurotic disorders through the work of Joseph Wolpe, who applied the findings of animal experiments to his method of systematic desensitization, the precursor to today's fear reduction techniques. British psychologist Hans Eysenck presented behavior therapy as a constructive alternative.
At the same time this of Eysenck's work, B.F. Skinner and his associates were beginning to have an impact with their work on operant conditioning. Skinner's work was referred to as radical behaviorism and avoided anything related to cognition. However, Julian Rotter, in 1954, and Albert Bandura, in 1969, contributed behavior therapy with their respective work on social learning theory, by demonstrating the effects of cognition on learning and behavior modification.
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