Spotlight on ABCT's 50th Anniversary

Principles of Change

Bob Klepac muses on his past and our future, a future in which he sees ever more need to do effective outreach and dissemination. He notes that CBT has become so popular that all practitioners have learned the language but many miss the principles behind the procedures.

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Steve Hollon

Steve is an empiricist first and foremost, who looks at the long-term effects and finds CBT to be the approach supported by evidence.

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Toni Zeiss

Loves ABCT and hoping the organization can find ways to increase its interprofessional approach.

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Dean McKay

Posits that the proliferation of CBT coincided with our own growth and maturation.

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Tom Ollendick

CBT is effective with between 55 and 75 percent of the population. That's great, but we should explore ways to help the other 30 percent that come in for treatment. I think we're on the right road, and it's looking bright up ahead, but the journey's not over.

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Linda Sobell

spent 20 years at ABCT serving in every conceivable role until finally, inevitably, there was nothing left but that which she had spent a career avoiding: the presidency.

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Patricia Resick

recalls serving at a time when the organization realized it had won the war and no longer needed to "advance" CBT; she is the sole person to have served as President of both AABT and ABCT.

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Dennis Russo recounts ABCT's history, looking at our efforts at "advancement," following early efforts in behavioral medicine and ABBP, with the idea of helping the patient be a better steward of his and her own care. Today, we still aim to find ways to make patients' better health part of a integrated primary care.

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J. Gayle Beck invites us first to enjoy the fruits of the labors of our forebears who fought the intellectual fights to get us to a point where CBT is now viewed as treatment as usual; and, further, invites us to imagine the next frontiers and the barriers to them. Give it a listen:

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Believes mentoring is key to the future. As mentors, he says, our jobs are to make sure we can show somebody the way and allow others to their wisdom and experience, so that new folks see this as a cooperative, not a competitive, environment. We need to create environments that will support intellectual growth and be welcomed into something that's bigger than they are.

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Finds the webinars invaluable for department training, appreciates the interesting and thought-provoking answers she gets from questions posed on the list serve, and looks forward to her annual lab dinners at our convention, which we ought to remind you, is happening earlier than usual, in October.

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Stefan Hofmann

Looks at ABCT as a big tent with a solid fabric, open minded but rooted in empirical science, and just the place to confront all the immense changes in health care delivery.

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Jacqueline Persons

Is it possible to incorporate research into one's practice? or for a researcher to become a clinician? or for a clinician to thrive at ABCT? I wonder......

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Dick Suinn

recounts how BT has gone from upstart to major force in psychology and how ABCT has solidified its position as the home for evidence-based therapies

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Jonathan Abramowitz

watch, and listen, as rock star turned president turned actor and research icon explains why ABCT is important to him. "Important?" you ask. Jon and his wife planned the birth of their children around the meetings.

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Anne Marie Albano

recounts her early days, when she exchanged one hero, Billy Idol, for a couple of others, Joe Wolpe and Leo Reyna. Today, she sees ABCT's legacy as building bridges across disciplines.

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Ray DiGiuseppe

has been coming almost 40 of our 50 years. He says he always comes back from meetings rejuvenated. Even as a young professional, he said it was "so exciting to talk to people making the therapies, doing the research."

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Steve Hayes

predicts a future where we are chasing new developments inside our science values; where lines blur between CBT and other traditions; and where we continue to add to and learn from our CBT tradition, exploring process-oriented interventions

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Marsha Linehan

muses on her earliest days and the doors that Jerry Davison opened for her. "Join," she says, "you'll get a lot out of it, just like I have," noting that you "can't get better advice than you're going to get from members of ABCT."

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