How CBT Was Born

Mary Cover Jones used behavior therapy with fearful children in the 1920s, and in the late 1930s, an American psychiatrist, Abraham Low, used cognitive training for psychiatric aftercare of patients following their release from hospitals. One can see that the threads of what later became CBT were separate during the early years (the strand of behavioral therapy and the strand of cognitive therapy.

Early Behaviorism

During the 1950s to the 1970s, researchers around the globe, including Clark L. Hull and John B. Watson, became inspired by the ideas of behav-iorism, based primarily on scientific research of animals. J. B. Watson is often called the founder of behaviorism. His argument was that intuition and introspection could not be measured; therefore, the science of behavior was stronger and more valid. Hull, an American psychologist of the early twentieth century, was interested in scientifically studying the assumptions behind certain behaviors.

His work was developed during his professorship at Yale University. John Wolpe, a psychiatrist from South Africa, focused on using behaviorism to improve neurotic disorders, drawing from what he learned from experiments on animals and using systematic desensitization (repeated and increasing exposure to a particular stimulus until the subject is no longer afraid. In terms of human beings, he believed that the patient’s reaction to a feared situation could be diminished by learned, pleasurable responses to the feared stimuli. An early name for this process was recipro-cal-inhibition therapy. Today this technique would be called fear reduction.

Ancient, philosophical roots of CBT lie in the philosophy of Stoicism, as described by Aaron Beck, one of the founders of behavioral ther-apy. The Stoics believed that it was man’s thoughts and beliefs about events, rather than the events themselves, that contributed to personal upset and disturbance.

A British psychologist, Hans Eysenck, believed that getting rid of the symptoms frees the patient from neurosis. Eysenck was against long-term psychoanalysis, believing that behavioral approaches offered a more constructive alternative. It seemed, however, that these early practitioners of behaviorism found little success when applying their methods to depression.

What Was Before Behaviorism?

Psychoanalysis originated during the nineteenth century, with the idea that unconscious elements of the mind are closed off and can be brought out only with hours, weeks, and months on the couch. Freud’s predecessor was eighteenth-century Austrian physician Franz Mesmer, who used what he called “magnetism” to alleviate psychological disturbance. Freud studied with Jean Martin Charcot, a late nineteenth-century French neurologist, who used what today would be called hypnosis. Freud employed a similar method, not for the purpose of suggestion, but to induce an altered state of consciousness in which the patient would be free to draw forth hidden memories and motivations.

The earliest references to behaviorism actually occur during the eighteenth century, when it was believed that people were somewhat conditioned by accidental life happenings, such as someone being deathly afraid of dogs because of an early altercation with a mean animal. Only later did the idea emerge that some type of counter-training could help the individual to unlearn the ingrained response to a specific situation.

What Changed?

The earliest belief systems about the nature of the human mind, behav-ior, and potential for change were somewhat limited in that it was assumed that the person could not make significant alterations in his or her quality of life because of the hidden nature of the difficulties. What shifted with the early cognitive and behavioral therapists was the idea that perhaps, with the right kind of help, patients could face the hidden barriers and learn new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. These hopes and ideas, and the eventual merging of several methods of therapy, brought new possibilities for patients and practitioners in the therapeutic communities.

Albert Ellis created a system in the 1950s termed Rational Therapy, which. has been called one of the first methods of cognitive therapy. His work was another reaction to the heavy emphasis on psychoanalysis, which was popular during that time. The work of Albert Ellis later was called Rational Emotive Therapy, making him a part of the cognitive revolution.

The approaches of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck were sometimes criticized as being overly mental, focusing too much on thoughts and cognition.

One can see in these historical roots that as each new form emerged, it faced criticism, rejection, and finally integration into the world of psychology.