Cognitive behavioral therapy significant person Aaron T. Beck
Third wave: behavior and cognitive therapies merge
Although the early behavioral approaches were successful in many of the neurotic disorders, they had little success in treating depression. Behaviorism was also losing in popularity due to the cognitive revolution. The therapeutic approaches of Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck gained popularity among behavior therapists, despite the earlier behaviorist rejection of mentalistic concepts like thoughts and cognitions. Both of these systems included behavioral elements and interventions, with the primary focus being on problems in the present.
In initial studies, cognitive therapy was often contrasted with behavioral treatments to see which was most effective. During the 1980s and 1990s, cognitive and behavioral techniques were merged into cognitive behavioral therapy. Pivotal to this merging was the successful development of treatments for panic disorder by David M. Clark in the UK and David H. Barlow in the US.Over time, cognitive behavior therapy came to be known not only as a therapy, but as an umbrella term for all cognitive-based psychotherapies. These therapies include, but are not limited to, rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), cognitive therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, metacognitive therapy, metacognitive training, reality therapy/choice theory, cognitive processing therapy, EMDR, and multimodal therapy. All of these therapies are a blending of cognitive- and behavior-based elements.
This blending of theoretical and technical foundations from both behavior and cognitive therapies constituted the "third wave" of CBT. The most prominent therapies of this third wave are dialectical behavior therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy.Despite the increasing popularity of third-wave treatment approaches, reviews of studies reveal there may be no difference in the effectiveness compared with non-third wave CBT for the treatment of depression.