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Cognitive Therapy and the Three Waves: Advantages, Disadvantages and Rapprochement

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Abstract

We often find ourselves defending our approach while attacking others as if this is a winner-take-all business that we are in. The only “winner” that matters should be the patient and patients are seldom acolytes of schools of therapy. In this chapter, I will take the position of explicating the cognitive therapy model, reviewing its history, examining the context of its emergence, comparing it to other approaches, and suggesting limitations and opportunities that a more expanded cognitive model might provide. Rather than “defend” the cognitive model, I will describe it, review the rationale for it, the research supporting it, its limitations and its strengths. It is my contention that we all have a lot to learn from each other. I know that my own views of ACT and mindfulness have evolved over the years and I am happy to say that I have benefitted from having the flexibility to embrace concepts, techniques and theories that I initially opposed. On the academic horizon I see the emergence of a new approach advanced by Hofmann and Hayes—the Process Based Model—that is integrative, process and problem focused, and open to using techniques and ideas from first wave behavioral, second wave cognitive, and third wave approaches. Perhaps this is the Fourth Wave—the one that we ride together.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, New York City, NY, USA

    Robert L. Leahy

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  1. Robert L. Leahy
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Correspondence to Robert L. Leahy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV, USA

    William O'Donohue

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Akihiko Masuda

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Leahy, R.L. (2022). Cognitive Therapy and the Three Waves: Advantages, Disadvantages and Rapprochement. In: O'Donohue, W., Masuda, A. (eds) Behavior Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11677-3_11

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