The history of CBT

In short

• "Beck invented CBT" is only half true. CBT grew from several independent lines, not from one man.
• The core idea is about 2,000 years old: the Stoic Epictetus wrote that people are disturbed not by things, but by their opinions about them.
• The first wave of CBT was behavioural: laws of learning, found in the lab, applied to human fear. The working ingredient seems to be exposure, facing the fear on purpose.
• Albert Ellis came first. He started practising his approach in 1955 and first presented it in 1956; Beck's first papers on thinking in depression came out in 1963–1964. Both came out of psychoanalysis and reached similar ideas independently.
• Aaron Beck set out to prove the psychoanalytic theory of depression right, and his own data wouldn't let him. Cognitive therapy grew from what he found instead.
• The early trials favoured cognitive therapy but had weak spots. The strongest finding is that relapse (depression coming back) was less common after therapy ended than after medication was stopped.
• CBT is the most researched talking therapy, but for depression it barely outperforms other proper psychotherapies: the difference is g = 0.06, on a scale where 0 means no difference (against a waitlist or usual care, CBT scores 0.79). Most researched does not mean most effective.
• The "three waves" are a useful story, not a scientific fact. The division itself is disputed, and even its main opponents, Hofmann and Hayes, ended up writing a paper together in 2019.

Timeline: 2,000 years at a glance

The whole history of CBT on one line, from the Stoics to large meta-analyses. Details and sources are in the chapters below.

1. ~2,000 years ago

   Epictetus: people are disturbed not by things but by their opinions about things

   Roots

2. 1904

   Pavlov wins the Nobel Prize, then spends decades on conditioned reflexes

   Behavioural line

3. 1920

   Watson and Rayner: the "Little Albert" experiment — fear can be learned

   Behavioural line

4. 1924

   Mary Cover Jones: three-year-old Peter gradually stops fearing a rabbit

   Behavioural line

5. 1953

   The term "behaviour therapy" appears; Skinner's book comes out

   Behavioural line

6. 1955

   Ellis starts practising his approach, the future REBT

   Cognitive line

7. 1958

   Wolpe's book: fear is weakened gradually, while staying calm

   Behavioural line

8. 1963–1964

   Beck's first papers on thinking in depression

   Cognitive line

9. 1977

   Rush, Beck and colleagues' trial: cognitive therapy versus an antidepressant

   Evidence

10. 1979

    "Cognitive Therapy of Depression", the first detailed manual by Beck and co-authors

    Cognitive line

11. 1993

    Marsha Linehan describes DBT for borderline personality disorder

    Third wave

12. 1999

    Hayes, Strosahl and Wilson's book on ACT

    Third wave

13. 2008

    IAPT across England: CBT becomes the backbone of state-funded care

    Evidence

14. 2023

    Meta-analysis of 409 trials: for depression CBT barely outperforms other therapies

    Evidence

What the colours on the timeline mean. The lines below are a way of telling the story, not a strict scientific classification: the "three waves" split itself is disputed, as a separate chapter below explains.

• Roots

  An old philosophical idea: we are disturbed not by events but by our opinions about them

  Methods: —

  People: Epictetus and the Stoics

• Behavioural line

  The first wave. Fears and habits are learned, so they can be unlearned. The work targets behaviour rather than thoughts

  Methods: Conditioning, systematic desensitisation, exposure

  People: Pavlov, Watson, Mary Cover Jones, Skinner, Wolpe, Eysenck

• Cognitive line

  The second wave. Feelings depend on how we think about an event, and thoughts can be tested and changed

  Methods: REBT (Ellis), cognitive therapy (Beck), cognitive-behaviour modification (Meichenbaum)

  People: Ellis, Beck, Meichenbaum

• Third wave

  What matters is not only what we think but how we relate to our thoughts and feelings: acceptance, mindfulness, values

  Methods: ACT, DBT, MBCT, FAP

  People: Hayes, Linehan, Segal, Williams and Teasdale, Kohlenberg and Tsai

• Evidence

  Not a wave but a line of research: trials and meta-analyses that test whether and how much CBT helps

  Methods: Randomised trials, meta-analyses

  People: Rush, Hollon, Cuijpers and others

How to read these notes: evidence labels and myths

Every claim here carries a label that tells you how solid it is, so you can see at a glance what is proven, what is someone's account and what is still open.

These are open notes to Episode 1 of the CBT series on YouTube; they can be read on their own. They tell the story in order, from ancient philosophy to today's research, with sources and years.

The labels

Where sources disagree, both versions are given.

Popular myths are marked with a "Myth vs fact" callout, and all of them are collected in “Myths about CBT: a quick check” near the end.

This is education, not therapy or diagnosis. These notes mention suicide; if you need support now, see If you need help now at the end.

One name, two meanings

CBT stands for cognitive behavioural therapy. In the broad sense it is a family of methods, not one method clinical consensus; Hofmann et al., 2012; Hofmann, Sawyer & Fang, 2010.

Broadly, the name covers a family of cognitive, behavioural and emotion-focused methods (Hofmann et al., 2012). Narrowly, it means Beck's cognitive therapy, built on the cognitive model, in which thoughts and perceptions shape feelings and behaviour (in Beck's institute's own words; Beck Institute).

Early Beck called his method "cognitive therapy"; Judith Beck's 2020 textbook calls it "Cognitive Behavior Therapy" documented fact. We found no direct Beck Institute statement that the two names are synonyms, though the literature often uses them that way.

Sources: Hofmann et al., 2012 · Hofmann, Sawyer & Fang, 2010 · Beck Institute, About CBT

A 2,000-year-old idea: the Stoics

The thought at the heart of CBT, that our view of events shapes how we feel about them, was written down by a Stoic philosopher almost two thousand years ago.

"Not by the things, but by the opinions"

Long before laboratories and clinical trials, the Stoic Epictetus put the idea in one line. In Enchiridion 5, in George Long's translation, he wrote: "Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things." documented fact, quoted verbatim from the Perseus edition

Read it slowly and you have, in a nutshell, what twentieth-century therapists would later build whole methods around.

Both founders pointed back to the Stoics

This is not a link invented by later historians. In their 1979 manual Cognitive Therapy of Depression (p. 8), Beck and his co-authors Rush, Shaw and Emery themselves traced cognitive therapy to the Stoic philosophers in Beck's own words; quoted in Robertson, 2010.

Ellis did the same: he credited the Stoics and quoted Epictetus documented fact; Ellis, 1962, pp. 35, 54, 109; Ellis & MacLaren, 2005, p. 10.

Sources: Robertson, 2010 · Epictetus, Enchiridion 5, tr. Long · Ellis, 1962 (Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy) · Ellis & MacLaren, 2005

Fear can be learned: Pavlov, Watson and "Little Albert"

Laboratory work on learning showed that fear can be taught, which raised the obvious next question: can it be untaught?

From digestion to reflexes

The story of behaviour therapy begins with a physiologist, not a therapist. Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) won the Nobel Prize in 1904 for work on digestive glands, then spent 30+ years on conditioned reflexes documented fact; Uytman, 1967. A conditioned reflex is a reaction that is not inborn but learned, when one thing happens together with another again and again. From this work grew the idea that reactions, including emotional ones, can be learned.

1. 1904

   Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) wins the Nobel Prize for work on digestive glands, then spends 30+ years on conditioned reflexes

   Documented factUytman, 1967

2. 1920

   Watson & Rayner, "Conditioned emotional reactions" ("Little Albert")

   Documented factWatson & Rayner, 1920

3. 2011

   Ben Harris, a historian, "Letting go of Little Albert", on how textbooks retold the experiment

   Documented factHarris, 2011

The Little Albert experiment (1920)

In 1920 the researchers John Watson and Rosalie Rayner published "Conditioned emotional reactions", the paper now known as "Little Albert": on a single baby, called Albert in the paper, they tried to show that fear can be learned documented fact; Watson & Rayner, 1920. Rayner was a 21-year-old graduate student who assisted Watson with this work; she later married him, after his divorce documented fact; APA Monitor, 2012. At about 9 months, Albert showed no fear of a white rat, a rabbit or masks.

At about 11 months, the rat was paired several times with a loud blow on a steel bar behind him. Fear of the rat appeared and spread to a rabbit, a dog, fur, cotton wool and a Santa Claus mask.

The original paper calls this spread "transfer"; today it is called generalisation. A month later the fear was still there, though weaker.

The ending textbooks rewrote

What happened next? Nothing. The fear was never removed, and the paper says so plainly documented fact, quoted verbatim: "Unfortunately Albert was taken from the hospital the day the above tests were made."

Textbooks later added invented details, including a "cure", as the historian Ben Harris has shown historians' interpretation; Harris, 1979 and 2011. Today such an experiment would not pass an ethics committee.

Who Albert really was is also unsettled. In 2009 it was suggested that "Albert" was a boy named Douglas Merritt, but this identification is disputed. Later research on the question was not checked against primary sources for these notes not verified.

Sources: Watson & Rayner, 1920 · Harris, 2011 · Uytman, 1967 · APA Monitor, 2012

Fear, step by step: Wolpe and the birth of behaviour therapy

In the 1950s the laws of learning moved from the lab into the clinic, and the method that survived the test of time turned out to be simple: face the fear on purpose.

A psychiatrist who lost faith in talking

Joseph Wolpe (1915–1997) was a South African psychiatrist. He turned to Pavlov and Hull after losing faith in psychodynamic therapy, the talking treatment that grew out of psychoanalysis historians' interpretation; Carona et al., 2023.

Clark Hull (1884–1952) was an American psychologist known for experiments on learning. In his theory, the link between a situation and a response grows stronger each time the response is rewarded by reducing a need documented fact; Britannica. Ideas like these let Wolpe treat neurotic fear as a learned habit that can be weakened, an alternative to Freud historians' interpretation; Poppen, 1998, via Athabasca University.

1. 1948–1956

   Joseph Wolpe (1915–1997), South African psychiatrist, develops systematic desensitisation

   Documented factCarona et al., 2023

2. 1958

   Wolpe, Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition

   Documented factCarona et al., 2023

Systematic desensitisation

Systematic desensitisation is a way of weakening fear gradually. The idea is to move toward what you fear step by step while staying relaxed. Relaxation and fear were thought to be incompatible. That is where the "reciprocal inhibition" in Wolpe's book title comes from: two incompatible reactions, relaxation and fear, hold each other back.

The results Wolpe reported sound spectacular. In a series of 210 cases, he reported almost 90% "apparently cured or much improved" the author's own account. That is the author's own report, with no control group (people for comparison who did not get the treatment), so we cannot tell how many patients would have improved anyway. It is not a trial.

What actually does the work

Later research took the method apart. It rested on two premises: you need to be relaxed, and you need to approach the fear in small steps. Craske et al. (2012) questioned both. Michelle Craske is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at UCLA who directs its Anxiety and Depression Research Center and studies how exposure therapy works documented fact; UCLA. Exposure means facing what you fear on purpose; graded exposure does it in small steps, from easy to hard. It turned out that relaxation does not boost graded exposure, and ungraded exposure, without the small steps, is no worse than graded proven by research; Craske et al., 2012, as summarised by Carona et al., 2023.

The working ingredient seems to be exposure: facing the fear on purpose.

The mother of behaviour therapy

Wolpe was not the first to treat fear this way. About 30 years earlier, the American psychologist Mary Cover Jones showed that a child's fear can be taken apart step by step. Her patient was Peter, a three-year-old boy who was terrified of a white rabbit (and of feathers and fur as well).

Jones gave Peter his favourite food and, while he ate, brought the rabbit in its cage a little closer each time: first from the far end of the room, then nearer and nearer. In the end Peter could hold the rabbit calmly. Jones described the case in "A laboratory study of fear: the case of Peter" documented fact; Jones, 1924, Pedagogical Seminary, 31, 308–315.

It is the same principle Wolpe later built his method on: fear fades when you meet it in small steps while staying calm. That is why Wolpe called Jones "the mother of behaviour therapy" historians' interpretation; Rutherford, 2010.

Who coined "behaviour therapy"?

The early 1950s were busy. B. F. Skinner, another key figure of the behavioural wave, published Science and Human Behavior in 1953. The same year, reports by Skinner and his co-authors Solomon and Lindsley used the term "behavior therapy" documented fact; Labrador, 2004.

Harry C. Solomon was a psychiatrist who from 1943 ran the Boston Psychopathic Hospital documented fact; American Psychiatric Association archives. Ogden Lindsley was Skinner's student at Harvard; in 1953 he set up a laboratory at Harvard Medical School that is widely seen as the first to study human behaviour with Skinner's methods documented fact; ABAI. Their studies with patients with psychosis took place at Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts documented fact; Labrador, 2004.

Who coined "behaviour therapy" is disputed sources disagree; Springer, 2011; SAGE, 2005. A Springer reference work (2011) names three independent authors (Lindsley 1953, Lazarus 1958, Eysenck 1959); the SAGE encyclopedia (2005) names Lazarus, 1958.

Eysenck, the provocateur

Hans Eysenck, another key figure of the first, behavioural wave, published a critical review of psychotherapy outcomes in 1952 and "Learning theory and behaviour therapy" in 1959 documented fact.

In the 1952 review, Eysenck pooled earlier reports on patients with neuroses. About 44% improved with psychoanalysis and about 64% with mixed-method psychotherapy, while about 72% improved without any systematic psychotherapy. His conclusion: "The figures fail to support the hypothesis that psychotherapy facilitates recovery from neurotic disorder." documented fact; Eysenck, 1952 The review became an argument that the usual treatments were unproven, which helped open the door to new, testable methods such as behaviour therapy historians' interpretation; Labrador, 2004.

Sources: Carona et al., 2023 · Labrador, 2004 · Watson & Watson, 2011 · Lazarus, 2005 · Eysenck, 1959 · Eysenck, 1952 · Britannica: Clark L. Hull · Athabasca University: Joseph Wolpe · American Psychiatric Association archives: Harry C. Solomon · ABAI: Ogden Lindsley · UCLA: Michelle G. Craske

Albert Ellis: the one who came first

Ellis created rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT), one of the first cognitive behavioural therapies. He was practising it from 1955, about seven years before Beck's first papers on thinking in depression.

What the three words in the name mean

Each word in the name REBT stands for one part of the work.

• Rational. Therapist and client look for irrational beliefs and reconsider them. An irrational belief is a rigid demand on oneself, on other people or on life. It usually sounds like "must", "have to" or "should", for example: "I absolutely must have my important goals fulfilled!" the author's own account; Ellis, "Emotional Disturbance… in a Nutshell". For Ellis there are no absolute musts, only "it would be better" the author's own account; Ellis, "My Philosophy of Psychotherapy". The task is to turn a rigid demand into a flexible wish.
• Emotive. REBT works with feelings, not only with thoughts. The word entered the name in 1961, to answer the charge that the approach ignored feelings documented fact; Ellis, 1995. One emotive technique is rational emotive imagery. A person imagines a major failure and practises changing the feeling: healthier disappointment or regret instead of depression the author's own account; Ellis, "Nutshell". Ellis also used role play and "shame-attacking exercises" the author's own account; Ellis, "My Philosophy".
• Behaviour. Beliefs are also changed through action. The client does homework in real life the author's own account; Ellis, "My Philosophy". For example, someone avoids meeting people for fear of rejection. They go and meet people anyway, reminding themselves that rejection is unpleasant but not awful the author's own account; Ellis, "Nutshell". The word "behaviour" was added to the name in 1993 documented fact; Ellis, 1995. Most REBT studies set clients homework documented fact; King et al., 2024.

What it looks like in everyday life. Take the example from the table in "The ABC model" below. A, the event: "I was rejected". B, the belief: "Everyone must like me, or I'm worth nothing". C, the consequence: the person feels terrible and withdraws. Ellis added two more letters to these three the author's own account; Ellis, "Nutshell":

• D — disputing. The irrational belief is tested with questions. Where is it written that everyone must like me? Does one rejection really prove I'm worth nothing? Does thinking this way help me?
• E — the new effect. A more rational belief appears: "It's unpleasant to be rejected. But not everyone has to like me, and rejection doesn't make me worthless". The feeling does not vanish, but it becomes healthier: sadness or disappointment instead of depression.

The meaning of D and E comes from Ellis the author's own account; Ellis, "Nutshell". The questions and sentences in the example are ours, for illustration.

Ellis and Beck: what is the difference

Ellis and Beck studied the same thing: how thoughts shape feelings. But they came at it in different ways.

An important caveat: the "philosophy versus data" contrast was drawn by Beck himself, together with his student Christine Padesky. It is the view of one side documented fact; authors: Padesky & Beck, 2003. Direct comparisons of REBT with cognitive methods are few, only 9. In them the difference is close to zero, d = 0.08 proven by research; David et al., 2018. So there is no evidence that one approach is stronger than the other.

They share more than divides them. Both hold that feelings depend largely on how a person understands an event the author's own account; Ellis, "Nutshell"; Beck Institute, About CBT. Both are active: the client does not only talk in the session but also does tasks between meetings the author's own account; Ellis, "My Philosophy"; Beck Institute: Understanding CBT. That is why today both belong to the broad CBT family, a name for a whole group of related methods rather than a single therapy clinical consensus; Hofmann et al., 2012; King et al., 2024.

From psychoanalyst to "rational therapist"

Albert Ellis (27 September 1913, Pittsburgh – 24 July 2007, New York) began, like Beck, inside psychoanalysis and left it. His approach changed its name twice along the way, and each renaming had a stated reason.

1. 1943, 1947

   MA and PhD in clinical psychology, Columbia University

   Documented factREBT Network, 2007

2. 1953 (from January)

   Breaks with psychoanalysis, calls himself a "rational therapist"

   Documented factREBT Network, 2007

3. 1955

   Starts practising rational therapy

   Documented factREBT Network, 2007; Ruggiero et al., 2018

4. 1956

   First presents it to colleagues: paper at the convention of the American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago, August

   Documented factEllis, 1958

5. 1957

   Paper "Rational psychotherapy and individual psychology"

   Documented factEllis, 1957

6. 2 April 1959

   Institute for Rational Living founded (Albert Ellis Institute since 1996)

   Documented factAlbert Ellis Institute

7. 1961

   RT (rational therapy) renamed RET (Rational Emotive Therapy), to answer the charge that it ignored feelings

   Documented fact / the author's own accountEllis, 1995

8. 1962

   Book Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy

   Documented factBlackwell & Heidenreich, 2021

9. 1993

   RET renamed REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy), so it would not be seen as "too cognitive"

   Documented fact / the author's own accountEllis, 1995; Albert Ellis Institute

So when did REBT "begin"? Sources disagree: 1955, 1957 or 1962. The safe wording: the approach took shape in the mid-1950s historians' interpretation.

The ABC model

Ellis's ABC model links an event, the beliefs about it and their consequences the author's own account; Albert Ellis Institute.

Ellis saw the rigid "must" (demandingness) as the core of irrational thinking. Catastrophising ("this is awful, it couldn't be worse"), low frustration tolerance ("I can't stand this") and global self-ratings ("I'm worth nothing") follow from it historians' interpretation; Ruggiero et al., 2018.

The model can also loop. A consequence (C) can become a new event (A), and this is how "anxiety about anxiety" arises the author's own account.

Ellis or Beck: the dates

Ellis practised from 1955 and presented in 1956. Beck's papers "Thinking and depression" I (1963) and II (1964) appeared in Archives of General Psychiatry documented fact.

The Albert Ellis Institute calls REBT "the first form of CBT" (the institute's own claim; Albert Ellis Institute).

The year of the cognitive revolution

Ellis was not working in a vacuum: the cognitive revolution set the stage. In a 2003 paper, George Miller dates the birth of cognitive science, the science of thinking and knowing, to 11 September 1956, the day of a symposium at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He calls it a "counter-revolution" against behaviourism, the school of psychology that studied behaviour and held that thoughts can't be measured historians' interpretation; Miller, 2003.

George A. Miller (who died in 2012, aged 92) was an American psychologist, best known for "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two" (1956), the paper suggesting that people can hold about seven "chunks" of information in short-term memory. The "cognitive revolution" is the 1950s shift in which psychology turned back to studying the mind and moved away from behaviourism; Princeton describes Miller as one of its leaders, alongside Jerome Bruner and Noam Chomsky documented fact; Princeton University, 2012.

How influential was Ellis?

Sources: REBT Network, 2007 · Ellis, 1957 · Ellis, 1995 · Albert Ellis Institute: REBT · Albert Ellis Institute: history · Ruggiero et al., 2018 · Blackwell & Heidenreich, 2021 · Miller, 2003 · Ellis, 1958 (J. Gen. Psychol. 59(1), 35–49) · Ellis, 1962 (Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy) · Princeton University, 2012: George Miller · Warner, 1991 · Columbia University Libraries, 2011 · Smith, 1982 (American Psychologist 37, 802–809; not opened) · Padesky & Beck, 2003 · Ellis, "Emotional Disturbance and Its Treatment in a Nutshell" · Ellis, "My Philosophy of Psychotherapy" · Sy, 2017: unconditional self-acceptance · David, Albert Ellis Institute: REBT and modern research · David et al., 2018 · King et al., 2024 · J. Beck, 2024 · Beck Institute: Understanding CBT · Beck Institute, About CBT · Padesky, 2004 · Beck, 2008 · Beck Institute publication list, 2021 · Rush et al., 1977 · Hofmann et al., 2012

Aaron Beck: the analyst whose own data said no

Aaron T. Beck (18 July 1921, Providence – 1 November 2021, at 100) trained as a psychoanalyst, tried to prove its theory of depression, and built cognitive therapy from what he found instead.

Life timeline

1. 1921

   Born in Providence, Rhode Island, youngest child of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine (then the Russian Empire); father Harry Beck, a printer with socialist views; mother Elizabeth Temkin

   Documented factInquirer, 2021; Goode, 2000; Beck & Fleming, 2022

2. age 7 or 8

   Broken arm, surgery, serious infection, over a month in hospital sources disagree on the age

   Documented factGoode, 2000; Fried, 2022

3. 1942

   Brown University: English and political science, magna cum laude

   Documented factMendlowicz et al., 2022; Penn Almanac, 2006

4. 1946

   Yale School of Medicine

   Documented factMendlowicz et al., 2022

5. 1950

   Marries Phyllis Whitman

   Documented factInquirer, 2025

6. 1954

   Joins the University of Pennsylvania, starts psychoanalytic training

   Documented factPenn Medicine, 2021

7. 1956 or 1958

   Completes psychoanalytic training (Padesky: 1956; NYT: 1958)

   Sources disagreePadesky, 2004; Goode, 2000

8. 1959–1961

   Dream studies in depression

   Documented factBeck Institute publication list, 2021

9. 1961

   Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), a questionnaire for measuring depression

   Documented factBeck Institute, 2021

10. 1963, 1964

    "Thinking and depression" I and II

    Documented factBeck Institute, 2021

11. 1967

    Depression: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects: automatic thoughts, cognitive triad, schema model

    Documented factPadesky, 2004

12. 1976

    Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders

    Documented factBeck Institute, 2021

13. 1979

    Beck, Rush, Shaw & Emery, Cognitive Therapy of Depression, the first detailed manual

    Documented factBeck Institute, 2021

14. 1994

    Beck Institute founded by Aaron and Judith Beck

    Documented factBeck, J. S., History of Beck Institute; Penn Medicine, 2021

15. 2006

    Lasker Award

    Documented factLasker Foundation; Penn Almanac, 2006

16. 2021

    Dies in his sleep, 1 November, aged 100

    Documented factInquirer, 2021; AP, 2021

A frightened boy

Before Aaron was born, the family had lost two children; a daughter died in the 1919 flu epidemic documented fact. Sources give different totals for the number of children, from three to five sources disagree.

His mother was depressed for years after that and very protective of her youngest son documented fact, per biographies. Some biographers link his mother's depression to his lifelong interest in depression biographers' interpretation. Beck himself did not say so.

At 7 or 8 he spent over a month in hospital after a broken arm, surgery and a serious infection. Afterwards he had a fear of blood and injury: hospital scenes, even in films, made his blood pressure drop, and the smell of ether could make him faint documented fact; Goode, 2000; AP, 2021.

How did he cope? He told The New York Times: "I learned not to be concerned about the faint feeling, but just to keep active." in Beck's own words; Goode, 2000. AP called this the first cognitive therapy exercise he did, on himself (journalists' interpretation; AP, 2021).

He repeated first grade. The quote "I always thought it was because I was dumb" appears only in a secondary source not verified against a primary source. His older brothers helped him catch up, and he finished school first in his class documented fact.

The psychiatrist who didn't want to be one

Beck wanted to be a neurologist and found psychiatry "nihilistic". A staff shortage sent him on a mandatory six-month rotation, meaning he had to spend six months working in psychiatry: "Even though I fought it, I finally had to do it." in Beck's own words; Beck, 2006; Bowles, 2004

The dream experiment (1959–1961)

Psychoanalytic theory explained depression as anger turned inward. Beck's dream studies ran 1959–1961 at the University of Pennsylvania documented fact; Beck Institute publication list, 2021: Beck & Hurvich, 1959; Beck & Ward, 1961. He set out to confirm the theory in his patients' dreams, and found something else.

The first study used a small group of depressed and non-depressed patients. At first he read the results as confirming the "need to suffer" in Beck's own words; Beck, 2008.

What convinced him most was something else: correcting patients' mistaken interpretations led to remission, meaning the symptoms of depression went away, in about 10–12 sessions in Beck's own words; Beck, 2008, looking back almost 50 years later.

The tidy version and the real one

The story was also less tidy than it sounds. Christine Padesky (2004), Beck's former student, says his faith in psychoanalysis eroded gradually over about ten years.

The historian Rachael Rosner (2012, 2014), working with his personal archive, shows the "dreams to insight" story is simplified: a department conflict (a petition in January 1962) and years of isolation also mattered historians' interpretation; Rosner, 2012, 2014.

What was the petition? In January 1962 Kenneth Appel, head of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, urged the whole department to sign a petition against the psychiatrist Eli Robins, the medical dean's preferred candidate. Beck refused to sign. The conflict strained his ties with colleagues and friends, and he stepped back from teaching for about five years historians' interpretation; Psicologia USP, 2017, after Rosner.

"I'm boring him": automatic thoughts

By Beck's own account, a patient describing her intimate life felt anxious. Asked about it, she admitted she was thinking "I'm afraid I'm boring you." in Beck's own words; Goode, 2000; Smith, 2009

He called such thoughts automatic thoughts: fast, half-noticed, and they shape how we feel. In 1967 his book Depression: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects set out automatic thoughts, the cognitive triad and the schema model documented fact; Padesky, 2004. The cognitive triad is a negative view of three things at once: oneself, the world and the future. Schemas are core beliefs, deeper and more stable than quick automatic thoughts.

Rejected by the psychoanalysts

The American Psychoanalytic Association turned down his membership twice; one objection was that his patient got better in too few sessions documented fact, per historians; Psicologia USP, 2017, after Rosner.

Later he called psychoanalysis "a faith-based therapy" in Beck's own words; Smith, 2009.

His wife: the "reality tester"

Phyllis Whitman Beck (1927–2025) was married to him for 71 years. With four children, she studied law at night at Temple University, graduating in 1967, aged 39, first in her class documented fact; Inquirer, 2025.

In 1981 she became the first woman appointed to Pennsylvania's Superior Court. Note that a woman already sat on the state Supreme Court in 1961 documented fact; Inquirer, 2025.

Beck called her his "reality tester" in Beck's own words; Goode, 2000.

Their children are Roy, Judith, Daniel and Alice. Judith Beck is president of the Beck Institute and author of Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond; Alice Beck Dubow became a judge documented fact.

Most of his work came after 50

Here is a detail worth pausing on. Before 50, Beck had published fewer than 40 works. In the years from 50 to 80 he published 370 documented fact; Padesky, 2004, for before 50 and 50–80.

Over his lifetime he wrote 600+ articles and about 25 books documented fact. The book count varies slightly sources disagree: Penn Medicine (2021) gives 600+ articles and 24 books; the Beck Institute gives 25.

He created several scales: BDI (depression, 1961; updated BDI-II 1996), BHS (hopelessness, 1974) and BAI (anxiety, 1988). The scales are copyrighted, so we name them and do not reproduce them.

Hopelessness and suicide

His studies found that hopelessness predicted later suicide better than how depressed a person was in Beck's own words; Beck, 2006.

This line of work led to treatment. In a 2005 randomised trial co-authored by Beck, 10 sessions of cognitive therapy after a suicide attempt reduced repeat attempts over 18 months from 41.6% to 24.1% proven by research, one trial; Brown et al., 2005. Safety Planning grew out of this line of work (Thase, 2022). Described by Stanley and Brown in 2012, it is a brief intervention: the person writes, with a clinician, a short ordered list of their own warning signs, ways to cope, people and places that help, and professionals to contact, plus steps to keep lethal means out of reach documented fact; Stanley & Brown, 2012.

In his 90s

Most people retire; Beck started a new direction. In his 90s he worked on Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy (CT-R) for people with serious mental illness. It is built around what a person wants from life rather than symptoms documented fact; Beck Institute.

One randomised trial (2012, 60 patients with schizophrenia) found improved functioning, that is, how well a person copes with everyday life: d = 0.56 proven by research, single study; Grant et al., 2012. d is an effect size: the bigger it is, the bigger the difference between groups, and 0 means no difference.

"90 is the new 70" and "I was born with happy genes" in Beck's own words; Art Carey, 2011. By 90 his eyesight and hearing had declined so much that he gave up tennis (Art Carey, 2011).

Criticism

Not everyone was impressed. Psychoanalysts called the approach superficial; behaviourists said thoughts can't be measured; psychiatrist Donald Klein argued cognitive therapy mostly boosts morale documented fact; Goode, 2000.

That CBT helps is better supported than Beck's explanation of why it helps (Gaudiano, 2008).

Journalist Benedict Carey recalls that Beck took criticism hard (a journalist's recollection; Carey, 2021).

Awards, and one title to avoid

Besides the Lasker Award (2006), his awards include the Heinz Award (2000/2001) and the Grawemeyer Award, and membership of the National Academy of Medicine.

• Lasker Award. The Lasker Awards, often called "America's Nobels", honour major contributions to medical research. Beck received the 2006 Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award "for the development of cognitive therapy" documented fact; Lasker Foundation; Penn Almanac, 2006.
• Heinz Award. The Heinz Awards were set up in 1993 by Teresa Heinz in memory of her husband, Senator John Heinz. Beck was named the recipient of the 2000 Heinz Award in the Human Condition, announced in February 2001, which explains the two years documented fact; Daily Pennsylvanian, 2001.
• Grawemeyer Award. The University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award for Psychology, worth $200,000, recognises outstanding ideas in psychology. Beck received it in 2004 for his work on cognitive therapy documented fact; APS Observer, 2004.

Sources: Goode, NYT, 2000 · AP in Boston Globe, 2021 · Philadelphia Inquirer, 2021 · Beck & Fleming, 2022 · Mendlowicz et al., 2022 · Fried, 2022 · Beck, 2006 · Bowles, 2004 · Padesky, 2004 · Beck, 2008 · Psicologia USP, 2017 · Smith, 2009 · Inquirer, 2025 · Beck Institute: Dr. Aaron T. Beck · Beck Institute: Judith Beck · Penn Medicine, 2021 · Beck Institute publication list, 2021 · History of Beck Institute · Lasker Foundation · Penn Almanac, 2006 · Brown et al., 2005 · Thase, 2022 · Beck Institute: CT-R · Grant et al., 2012 · Art Carey, 2011 · Gaudiano, 2008 · Benedict Carey, 2021 · Heinz Awards · NCTSN: BDI-II · Beck et al., 1974 · Beck et al., 1988 · EBSCO: Beck's cognitive triad · Stanley & Brown, 2012 · Lasker Foundation: 2006 award · Daily Pennsylvanian, 2001 · APS Observer, 2004

Beck and Ellis: who borrowed from whom, and how the lines converged

Beck and Ellis arrived at similar ideas separately, and over the next decades the behavioural and cognitive lines, plus a few bridge-builders and British researchers, merged into what we now call CBT.

Did Beck borrow from Ellis?

It is a fair question, given the dates. In a 2002 letter to Christine Padesky, Beck wrote that he learned of Ellis's work only after his 1963–1964 papers, from a letter by Ellis himself. Karen Horney and Alfred Adler, he wrote, were the ones who influenced him in Beck's own words; Padesky, 2004.

Both were psychoanalysts who broke with parts of Freud's theory. Karen Horney (1885–1952), a German-born American psychoanalyst, argued that social conditions, rather than inborn drives, shape much of personality and its problems. Alfred Adler (1870–1937), an Austrian psychiatrist, worked with Freud and then split from him; his "individual psychology" looks at a person's feelings and memories in the light of their overall life goals documented fact; Britannica.

Two lines, one family

In 1970 Beck argued in Behavior Therapy that behavioural and cognitive therapy are close and differ mainly in their theory of how change happens in Beck's own words; Blackwell & Heidenreich, 2021.

The bridge-builders

Three authors built bridges between the waves documented fact; the "bridge" reading is historians' interpretation.

Donald Meichenbaum wrote Cognitive Behavior Modification (1977) and Stress Inoculation Training (1985). Cognitive behaviour modification grew out of his research on self-instructional training: teaching people to change what they say to themselves, the inner instructions that guide what they do. Stress inoculation training teaches coping in three phases: understanding one's stress, learning and rehearsing skills such as relaxation and problem-solving, then using them in real stressful situations. Michael Mahoney wrote Cognition and Behavior Modification (1974) and was the first editor of Cognitive Therapy and Research (1977).

Albert Bandura introduced self-efficacy (1977): change runs through expectations of coping, built by experiences of mastery documented fact; Bandura, 1977.

More second-wave milestones

Other second-wave milestones include exposure with response prevention for OCD (Meyer, 1966), meaning facing what triggers the obsession without the usual actions a person uses to calm down; covert sensitisation (Cautela, 1967) and Lazarus's multimodal therapy (1976).

In covert sensitisation, the person repeatedly imagines doing an unwanted behaviour and then imagines an unpleasant result, such as nausea, so that the behaviour loses its pull; nothing has to happen for real. Multimodal therapy looks at seven areas of a person's life, summed up as BASIC I.D.: behaviour, affect (emotions), sensation, imagery, cognition, interpersonal relationships and drugs/biology.

The first big integration of the behavioural and cognitive traditions is often said to be Clark's panic model (1986), which explains panic as a catastrophic reading of normal body sensations historians' interpretation. The first joint World Congress of behavioural and cognitive therapy (WCBCT) took place in 1995.

Associations followed. AABT, founded in 1966 by ten behaviourists, became the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) in 2005; the European association added "cognitive" in 1992 documented fact.

AABT stood for the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy; Wolpe and Lazarus were among its ten founders documented fact; ABCT history.

One model per disorder (mostly Oxford, 1985–2000)

From 1985 to 2000, mostly in Oxford, researchers built a separate cognitive model for each disorder. All rows are documented fact. A protocol here means a step-by-step treatment programme for one specific disorder.

Foa's prolonged exposure and Resick's cognitive processing therapy (1992) are often listed here, but their primary sources were not checked for these notes, so they are not in the table not verified.

A whole country chose CBT

Then a health system bet on it. In 2004, NICE recommended CBT for depression and anxiety clinical consensus. In 2006 the programme IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) was tried out at pilot sites. About 52% of patients recovered, but the evaluation was uncontrolled, meaning there was no comparison group (Clark, Layard & Smithies, 2008).

In 2008 IAPT was rolled out nationally in the NHS, England's public health service. According to Clark (2018), it treated over 560,000 patients a year, about half of whom recover, and had trained over 10,500 therapists (programme's own data; Clark, 2018).

Today it is called NHS Talking Therapies; the year of the renaming could not be confirmed not verified.

IAPT offered only NICE-recommended methods, mostly CBT. This made CBT the backbone of a national health system, and also drew criticism of one modality dominating (interpretation).

Sources: Padesky, 2004 · Blackwell & Heidenreich, 2021 · Bandura, 1977 · Meichenbaum, publications · Clark, 1986 · Salkovskis, 1985 · Clark & Wells, 1995 · Ehlers & Clark, 2000 · Craske publications (Barlow & Craske) · Clark, 2011 · Clark, Layard & Smithies, 2008 · Clark, 2018 · NHS Talking Therapies manual · ABCT history · EABCT · Britannica: Karen Horney · Britannica: Alfred Adler · Meichenbaum, 1977 · Defense Health Agency: stress inoculation training · Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology: covert sensitisation · SAGE Encyclopedia, 2015: multimodal therapy

Does CBT work? Yes, with caveats

The early trials favoured cognitive therapy but had weak spots; the strongest finding is that relapse was less common after therapy ended than after medication was stopped.

The first trials and their weak spots

In 1977 cognitive therapy was put head to head with an antidepressant. Here are the key trials, with their caveats.

NIMH TDCRP stands for the National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program. It randomly assigned 250 outpatients with depression to four 16-week treatments: CBT, interpersonal psychotherapy, the antidepressant imipramine plus clinical management, and a placebo pill plus clinical management documented fact; Elkin et al., 1989. Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), developed by Gerald Klerman and Myrna Weissman, is a short, structured therapy that helps a person resolve a current crisis in their relationships; for depression it usually takes 12 to 16 weekly sessions documented fact; ISIPT.

The effect that outlasts the therapy

The most striking result is about what happens after treatment stops.

In other words, past therapy protected at least as well as ongoing pills proven by research; Hollon et al., 2005.

Where CBT's evidence is strongest

A 2012 review of 106 meta-analyses found the strongest support for anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, bulimia, anger problems and general stress proven by research; Hofmann et al., 2012. That does not mean CBT beats every other therapy there.

Somatoform disorders are conditions in which bodily symptoms cause distress but are not explained by a medical illness. In DSM-5, the American diagnostic manual, the term was replaced by "somatic symptom and related disorders" documented fact; Psychiatric News; Kleinstäuber & Rief, 2015.

Is CBT losing its power?

Does CBT lose effect over time? A 2015 meta-analysis said yes (Johnsen & Friborg); a 2017 re-analysis with more trials found no steady decline (Cristea et al.). The question is still debated proven by research, still debated; Johnsen & Friborg, 2015; Cristea et al., 2017.

Sources: Rush et al., 1977 · Shaw, 1977 · Elkin et al., 1989 · Klein, 1996 · Hollon et al., 1992 · Hollon et al., 2005 · Luborsky et al., 1999 · Hofmann et al., 2012 · Johnsen & Friborg vs Cristea et al.: overview · ISIPT: overview of IPT · Psychiatric News: DSM-5 somatic symptom disorders · Kleinstäuber & Rief, 2015

The uncomfortable number: g = 0.06

CBT is the most researched talking therapy, but for depression it barely outperforms other proper psychotherapies; most researched does not mean most effective.

The number

The key meta-analysis is Cuijpers et al., 2023, in the journal World Psychiatry proven by research; Cuijpers et al., 2023. Its lead author, Pim Cuijpers, is a professor of clinical psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam who specialises in clinical trials and meta-analyses of psychological treatments documented fact; VU Amsterdam. A meta-analysis is a study that pools many studies; this one covered 409 randomised trials and 52,702 patients with depression.

It measures effect size with Hedges' g: the bigger it is, the bigger the difference between groups, and 0 means no difference. In the table below, 0.79 is a clear difference and 0.06 is almost none.

A waitlist is a group of people waiting for therapy who have not received it yet. Sensitivity analyses re-run the same data in different ways to see whether the result holds.

So CBT clearly beats doing nothing or usual care. Against other real therapies, the gap almost disappears.

Not a new finding

The NIMH TDCRP (1989) already found no difference between CBT and interpersonal therapy proven by research; Elkin et al., 1989.

Process-based therapy, described by Hofmann and Hayes in 2019 (see the next chapter), is partly a response to this. If therapy "brands" perform similarly, look at the processes that change in a specific person (the authors' position).

What guidelines say

NICE NG222 (2022) lists individual CBT as one of several first-line options (treatments offered first) for depression in adults, alongside behavioural activation, interpersonal therapy, short-term psychodynamic therapy and antidepressants clinical consensus; NICE NG222, 2022. Behavioural activation is a talking therapy that helps people with depression lift their mood by gradually doing more of the activities they find rewarding and worthwhile.

For more severe depression, the list is ordered by recommended use. Individual CBT combined with an antidepressant comes first, and individual CBT alone second.

And it is not positive thinking

In CBT you don't swap a bad thought for a nice one; you check it. What is the evidence? Is there another explanation? The goal is a realistic view (the Beck Institute's own position; Beck, J. S., 2020).

Sources: Cuijpers et al., 2023 · Cuijpers et al., 2023 (record) · NICE NG222, 2022 · Beck Institute: CBT myths · Norris, 2023 · Beck, J. S., 2020 · Elkin et al., 1989 · VU Amsterdam: Pim Cuijpers · University of York: what is behavioural activation

Three waves of CBT: a useful story, not a scientific fact

CBT's history is usually told as three waves, but the division itself is disputed, and even its main opponents ended up writing together.

The three waves at a glance

Sources: Hayes, 2004; Ruggiero et al., 2018; Blackwell & Heidenreich, 2021.

The abbreviations in the third row: ACT is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy; DBT, dialectical behaviour therapy, is Linehan's treatment for borderline personality disorder; MBCT is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy; FAP is Functional Analytic Psychotherapy.

Two terms from the table. Operant conditioning is learning through consequences: people and animals come to do or avoid certain behaviours depending on what follows them. Defusion, in ACT, means stepping back from the literal meaning of a thought and noticing thinking as an ongoing process, instead of taking the thought as a fact.

Who named the third wave

Steven C. Hayes, creator of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), coined "third wave" in Behavior Therapy, 2004 documented fact. Hayes saw the third wave as building on the first two, not replacing them (in the author's own words).

New wave or old hat?

Critics read it differently. Stefan Hofmann is a clinical psychologist known for research on CBT for anxiety and depression; he was a professor at Boston University and in 2021 took up a Humboldt Professorship at the University of Marburg in Germany documented fact; Humboldt Foundation, 2021. Gordon Asmundson is a professor of psychology at the University of Regina in Canada who studies fear, anxiety and trauma documented fact; CIPSRT. Hofmann & Asmundson (2008), in "New wave or old hat?", argued that ACT has philosophical differences, but its techniques are fully compatible with CBT (historians' / researchers' interpretation).

Hofmann, Sawyer & Fang (2010) went further. DBT's and metacognitive therapy's developers see their methods as extensions of CBT, and MBCT continues CBT directly. ACT does differ in theory: it rests on relational frame theory and rejects the cognition–emotion–behaviour model.

Relational frame theory (RFT), developed by Hayes and colleagues, is an account of human language and thinking that builds on Skinner: it explains how people learn to relate words and ideas to one another, and it is the theoretical basis of ACT documented fact; Zettle, 2005.

Data show no wave is superior, so the authors call "new wave" misleading (interpretation).

How do the waves differ in practice? Per Hofmann & Asmundson (2008), CBT helps you appraise emotional cues differently before a response arises. ACT teaches you not to suppress a response that has already arisen.

From opponents to co-authors

Here is the twist. In 2019 Hofmann and Hayes, former opponents, co-wrote "Process-based therapy". The idea is to choose interventions by the processes of change in a specific person, not by diagnosis or therapy "brand" (the authors' own position). How well this approach is supported by data has not yet been assessed for these notes.

Third-wave timeline documented fact

1. 1981

   Hayes's "comprehensive distancing" manual, ACT's precursor

2. 1985

   First account of relational frame theory (RFT)

3. c. 1990–1991

   The name ACT

4. 1991

   Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP), Kohlenberg & Tsai

5. 1993

   Linehan, Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (DBT)

6. 1999

   Hayes, Strosahl & Wilson, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

7. 2000

   MBCT randomised trial, Teasdale et al.

8. 2002

   Segal, Williams & Teasdale, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression

9. 2003

   Young, Klosko & Weishaar, Schema Therapy

10. 2008

    Wells, Metacognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression (often cited as 2009)

"Comprehensive distancing" was the first name of the therapy that became ACT, developed by Hayes and his first doctoral student, Robert Zettle. The name came from the idea of extending the "distancing" step of Beck's cognitive therapy, that is, stepping back from one's own thoughts. It was later changed to avoid the sense of detachment the word carried and to set the method clearly apart from cognitive therapy documented fact; Zettle, 2005.

Inside the third wave

In the MBCT trial (Teasdale et al., 2000), among patients who had already had depression three or more times (77% of the participants), MBCT significantly reduced the risk of relapse, that is, of depression coming back, over 60 weeks proven by research; Teasdale et al., 2000.

Linehan put "cognitive-behavioral" in DBT's book title, which suggests she saw DBT inside CBT (interpretation; Hofmann et al., 2010).

Whether schema therapy belongs to the third wave is a point on which sources disagree sources disagree; interpretation.

Sources: Hayes, 2004 · Hofmann & Asmundson, 2008 · Hofmann, Sawyer & Fang, 2010 · Hofmann & Hayes, 2019 · Zettle, 2005 · Hayes, Strosahl & Wilson, 1999 · Linehan, 1993 · Teasdale et al., 2000 · Segal et al., 2002 · Young et al., 2003 · Wells, 2008 · Kohlenberg & Tsai, 1991 · Ruggiero et al., 2018 · Blackwell & Heidenreich, 2021 · Zettle, 2005: from comprehensive distancing to ACT · Humboldt Foundation, 2021: Stefan G. Hofmann · CIPSRT: Gordon Asmundson · Britannica: operant conditioning · Luoma & Hayes: cognitive defusion · University of Washington: Marsha Linehan

Myths about CBT: a quick check

Most popular claims about CBT's history and power are half-truths; here they are in one place, each with what the evidence says and how solid that is.

Sources: Beck Institute: CBT myths · Norris, 2023 · Watson & Rayner, 1920 · Carona et al., 2023 · Padesky, 2004 · Cuijpers et al., 2023 · Hofmann, Sawyer & Fang, 2010 · Warner, 1991 · Columbia University Libraries, 2011

Try this: catch the second sentence

A one-minute exercise in noticing your automatic thoughts. It is a first step of self-observation, not therapy, and it does not replace a specialist.

The exercise

1. Next time you're in a tense conversation, notice the sentence playing in your head alongside what you're saying out loud, like Beck's patient with "I'm afraid I'm boring you."
2. Just catch it. Don't argue with it or judge it.
3. Write it down, word for word. Equipment needed: one pen.

Why this is the first step in CBT

In Beck's model, automatic thoughts are fast and half-noticed, and they shape how we feel in Beck's own words; Beck Institute. Noticing them comes before anything else.

Later steps, such as checking a thought against evidence, belong in structured work, ideally with a trained professional. The next episode covers what exactly counts as a "thought" in CBT, based on Judith Beck's work.

Please don't

Please don't use this exercise to diagnose yourself or anyone else.

And don't keep pushing alone if what you notice is persistent hopelessness or thoughts of not wanting to live. Reach out: see If you need help now below.

A blank template

A blank "thought record" template made by @seitopsy (inspired by Beck's thought diary, Beck et al., 1979) is part of the Instagram week for this episode. Forms from books and from the Beck Institute website are copyrighted, so we don't reproduce them here.

Sources: Beck Institute, About CBT · Padesky, 2004 · Goode, NYT, 2000

Further reading: free first

Each item says what it covers and which chapter it belongs to.

Free, online

1. Padesky, C. A. (2004). Aaron T. Beck: Mind, man, and mentor. A biographical essay by Beck's former student: how his faith in psychoanalysis faded, the letter about Ellis, his publications after 50. Chapters “Aaron Beck: the analyst whose own data said no” and “Beck and Ellis: who borrowed from whom, and how the lines converged”.
2. Beck, A. T. (2006). How an anomalous finding led to a new system of psychotherapy. Beck himself on how his data on dreams led him to cognitive therapy. Chapter “Aaron Beck: the analyst whose own data said no”.
3. Goode, E. (2000). A pragmatic man and his no-nonsense therapy, The New York Times (a copy of the article on a University of Oregon page). Childhood, his fear of blood, criticism. Chapter “Aaron Beck: the analyst whose own data said no”.
4. Harris, B. (2011). Letting go of Little Albert. How textbooks piled myths onto the famous experiment. Chapter “Fear can be learned: Pavlov, Watson and "Little Albert"”.
5. Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. The original Little Albert paper. Chapter “Fear can be learned: Pavlov, Watson and "Little Albert"”.
6. Hofmann, S. G., et al. (2012). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Where CBT's evidence is strongest. Chapter “Does CBT work? Yes, with caveats”.
7. Hofmann, S. G., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2010). The empirical status of the "new wave" of CBT. The debate about the third wave. Chapter “Three waves of CBT: a useful story, not a scientific fact”.
8. Blackwell, S. E., & Heidenreich, T. (2021). Cognitive behavior therapy at the crossroads. An overview of CBT's history and internal debates. Chapters “Beck and Ellis: who borrowed from whom, and how the lines converged” and “Three waves of CBT: a useful story, not a scientific fact”.
9. Beck Institute. About Cognitive Behavior Therapy. A short introduction to the cognitive model from the Beck Institute. Chapters “How to read these notes: evidence labels and myths” and “Try this: catch the second sentence”.

Paid (books)

10. Beck, J. S. (2020). Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond (3rd ed.). Guilford. Paid. Judith Beck's textbook; the next episode is based on it.
11. Robertson, D. (2020). The Philosophy of CBT (2nd ed.). Routledge. Paid. Stoicism and CBT; a free excerpt is on the author's site. Chapter “A 2,000-year-old idea: the Stoics”.

If you need help now

If your life is in danger, call your local emergency number: 112 in most of Europe, 911 in the US and Canada, 999 in the UK, 000 in Australia. For support lines by country, see Help now.

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