By Judith S. Beck, PhD
You may be surprised to learn that anyone can call themselves a “cognitive behavior therapist,”—yes, anyone! Even someone with no credentials at all. That’s because it’s not a “protected” term. In the U.S., states regulate professions. They set standards and requirements, for example, for psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, social workers, and psychiatric nurses. By law, you can’t identify yourself as belonging to one of these professions unless you’re approved and licensed by your state. But there is no such regulation for “therapists” or “psychotherapists” or “cognitive behavior therapists.”
So, first, make sure a therapist you’re considering falls into one of the professional categories above.
But having a license to practice psychotherapy doesn’t mean an individual necessarily is an effective practitioner. The treatment that many licensed therapists use has little or no research to demonstrate its efficacy. In fact, that’s one reason why my father, Dr. Aaron T. Beck, M.D., and I established the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy in 1994. We wanted to make sure that people were able to receive the most efficacious treatment available. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has now been demonstrated to be effective for a wide range of problems, challenges, and diagnoses in over 2,000 research studies, conducted around the world. There is much more research showing positive outcomes for clients than any other psychotherapy.
But how do you find a competent Cognitive Behavior Therapist when anyone can claim to be one? You need to ask questions. Some CBT therapists learned how to deliver this evidence-based treatment when they were in graduate school. Some learned how afterwards. An important factor is whether the therapist received both training and supervision from a qualified CBT educator, like those who have been certified by Beck Institute. It’s also important to ask how much experience and training a CBT therapist has had in treating your specific condition.
Then ask how the therapist conducts a typical session. Well-trained CBT therapists do a mood check (to make sure you’re making progress), ask for an update (of what has happened since the previous session), and find out what problems or goals you want to discuss at the session (“set the agenda”). They also help you draw conclusions from the work you did between sessions (your “action plan”). When discussing problems or goals, they help you do problem-solving, respond to unhelpful thinking, and/or teach you behavioral skills. They make sure you put in writing whatever you think is important to remember in the coming week. Reading these “therapy notes” is part of your Action Plan, along with any behavioral changes you want to make. During the session, and at the end of the session, they ask you for feedback to make sure they understood you correctly and you think they were helpful.
Of course, you and the therapist need to be a good match, too. You should be able to sense within 3 or 4 sessions whether you feel understood and validated, and whether the treatment plan the therapist describes to you makes sense. If not, you should express your misgivings to your therapist and decide whether to continue with this therapist or go elsewhere. Don’t worry about hurting your therapist’s feelings! It’s important that therapy be right for you.
Finding a CBT Therapist
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