HOW IT ALL BEGAN

The organization was originally founded in 1966 under the
name Association for Advancement of Behavioral Therapies (AABT; Franks, 1997)
by 10 behaviorists who were dissatisfied with the prevailing
Freudian/psychoanalytic model (founding members: John Paul Brady, Joseph Cautela, Edward Dengrove, Cyril
Franks, Martin Gittelman, Leonard Krasner, Arnold
Lazarus, Andrew Salter, Dorothy Susskind, and Joseph Wolpe). Although AABT/ABCT was not established until
1966, its history begins in the early
1900s with the birth of the behaviorist movement, which was brought about by
Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Thorndike, Hull, Mowrer, and
others-scientists who, concerned primarily with observable behavior, were
beginning to experiment with conditioning and learning theory. By the 1950s,
two entities-Hans Eysenck's research group (which
included one of AABT's founders Cyril Franks) at the University of London
Institute of Psychiatry, and Joseph Wolpe's research
group (which included another of AABT's founders, Arnold Lazarus) in South
Africa-were conducting important studies that would establish behavior therapy
as a science based on principles of learning. In complete opposition to the
psychoanalytic model, "The seminal significance of behavior therapy was the
commitment to apply the principles and procedures of experimental psychology to
clinical problems, to rigorously evaluate the effects of therapy, and to ensure
that clinical practice was guided by such objective evaluation" (Wilson, 1997).
The first president of the association was Cyril Franks, who
also founded the organization's flagship journal Behavior Therapy and was the
first editor of the AABT Newsletter. The first annual meeting of the
association took place in 1967, in Washington,
DC, concurrent with the American
Psychological Association's meeting.
An article in the November 1967 issue of the Newsletter,
entitled "Behavior Therapy and Not Behavior Therapies" (Wilson & Evans,
1967), influenced the association's first name change from Association for
Advancement of Behavioral Therapies to Association for Advancement of Behavior
Therapy because, as the authors argued, "the various techniques of behavior
therapy all derive from learning theory and should not be misinterpreted as
different kinds of behavior therapy…" (quoted in
Franks, 1987). This issue remains a debate in the field and within the
organization, particularly with the emergence of the term "cognitive behavioral
therapies," which resulted in yet another name change in 2005 to the
Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.
AABT/ABCT has been at the forefront of the professional,
legal, social, and ethical controversies and dissemination efforts that have
accompanied the field's evolution. The 1970s was perhaps the most "explosive"
(see Stuart, 1974) and controversial decade for the field of behavior therapy,
as it suffered from an overall negative public image and received numerous
attacks from the press regarding behavior modification and its possible
unethical uses. In Gerald Davison's (AABT's 8th president) public "Statement on
Behavior Modification from the AABT," he asserted that "it is a serious
mistake…to equate behavior therapy with the use of electric shocks applied to
the extremities…" and "a major contribution of behavior therapy has been a
profound commitment to full description of procedures and careful evaluation of
their effects" (Davison & Stuart, 1974, p. 3). From this point, AABT became
instrumental in enacting legislative guidelines that
protected human research subjects, and they also became active in efforts to
educate the public.
The training of mental health professionals has also been a
significant priority for the association. Along with its annual meeting, AABT
created an "ad hoc review mechanism" in the 70's through the 80's whereby a
state could receive a review of a behavior therapy program. This led to the
yearly publication of a widely used resource, "The Directory of Training
Programs." With growing concerns over quality control and standardization of
practice, the certification of behavior therapists also became an issue in the
1970s.
An ongoing debate within the association concerns what many
consider to be a movement away from basic behavioral science as the field has
attempted to advance and, in doing so, integrate more and more "new"
therapies/specializations, particularly the addition of cognitive theory and
its variety of techniques. John Forsyth, in his special issue of Behavior
Therapy (Forsyth & Hawkins, 1997) entitled "Thirty Years of Behavior
Therapy: Promises Kept, Promises Unfulfilled," summarized this opposition as
follows: "(a) cognition is not behavior, (b) behavior principles and theory
cannot account for events occurring within the skin, and most important, (c) we
therefore need a unique conceptual system to account for how thinking, feeling,
an other private events relate to overt human action." (Forsyth,
1997, p. 621). The field's desire to maintain its scientific foundations
and yet continue to advance and grow was reflected in its most recent
discussion about adding the word "cognitive" to the name of the association
(see the Oct. 2003 special issue [Antony, 2003] in the Behavior Therapist: "Is
It Time for AABT to Change Its Name?")
Many notable scholars have served as president of the
association, including Joseph Wolpe, Arnold Lazarus,
Nathan Azrin, and David Barlow. The current executive
director of the ABCT is Mary Jane Eimer, CAE. For a
wealth of historical specifics (governing bodies, lists of editors, past
presidents, award winners, SIGs, and conventions from the past 40 years) see ABCT's
40th anniversary issue of the Behavior Therapist (Albano, 2006).
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