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Dr. Mary Cover Jones — Mother of Behavior Therapy

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Dr. Mary Cover Jones — Mother of Behavior Therapy

New & Noteworthy

Who was the first behavior therapist?

Joseph Wolpe? Andrew Salter? Knight Dunlap? All good guesses, but all somewhat later than Mary Cover Jones.  So who is she?

Some of you already know her work, but maybe not her position in the chronology of behavior therapy.  Others may not know her at all.

ABCT President Sandy Pimentel has written an overview of Jones and some of her work that “would become a foundational model of our behavioral interventions still used today,” Honoring Our History: A CBTer’s Search for Mother.

Recommended reading also includes Mitchell Schare’s introduction to Jones’s earliest work, now a century old, in the latest issue of the Behavior Therapist: A Centennial of Behavior Therapy: The Clinical Psychological Science of Mary Cover Jones, Ph.D.

Those two seminal works are reprinted along with Schare’s introduction.

Related Information

Suggested Resources

What Is Cognitive Behavior Therapy?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a type of treatment that is based firmly on research findings.  It places emphasis on changing your cognitions (thoughts) or behaviors (actions) in order to effect change in how you feel. These approaches help people in achieving specific changes or goals.

Changes or goals might involve:

A way of acting: like smoking less or being more outgoing;
A way of feeling: like helping a person to be less scared, less depressed, or less anxious;
A way of thinking: like learning to problem-solve or get rid of self-defeating thoughts;
A way of dealing with physical or medical problems: like reducing back pain or helping a person stick to a doctor’s suggestions.

Cognitive behavioral therapists usually focus more on the current situation and its solution, rather than the past. They concentrate on a person’s views and beliefs about their life. CBT is an effective treatment for individuals, parents, children, couples, and families. The goal of CBT is to help people improve and gain more control over their lives by changing behaviors that don’t work well to ones that do.

How to Get Help

If you are looking for help, either for yourself or someone else, you may be tempted to call someone who advertises in a local publication or who comes up from a search of the Internet. You may, or may not, find a competent therapist in this manner. It is wise to check on the credentials of a psychotherapist. It is expected that competent therapists hold advanced academic degrees. They should be listed as members of professional organizations, such as the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies or the American Psychological Association. Of course, they should be licensed to practice in your state. You can find competent specialists who are affiliated with local universities or mental health facilities or who are listed on the websites of professional organizations. You may, of course, visit our website (www.abct.org) and click on “Find a CBT Therapist”

The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) is an interdisciplinary organization committed to the advancement of a scientific approach to the understanding and amelioration of problems of the human condition. These aims are achieved through the investigation and application of behavioral, cognitive, and other evidence-based principles to assessment, prevention, and treatment.