The Evidence Base for CBT
Treatment interventions are predicated on a robust evidence base derived from studies utilising randomised controlled and single-case methodologies that have demonstrated the efficacy and effectiveness of cognitive and behavioural psychotherapies in the treatment of common mental health problems, including the anxiety disorders, generalised anxiety, panic, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, bulimia and depression as identified by a host of recent reviews by NICE (www.nice.org.uk), SIGN and other review bodies.
CBT models have also been developed for use in an increasing range of mental health and health difficulties including severe and enduring mental health problems, such as psychosis, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, anger control, pain, adjustment to physical health problems, insomnia and organic syndromes, such as early stage dementia.
There is an extensive research base around behavioural approaches in working with children and people with learning disabilities, severe and enduring mental health problems and "challenging behaviour" generally. More recently CT and CBT have become the treatments of choice for adolescent depression, and for use with children and in intellectual disability (learning disability).
Research into the contribution of psychological factors to physical health problems (such as low back pain, chronic fatigue, recovery from surgery for example) is growing and has led to the development of CB approaches in these areas.
Developments in cognitive therapy, cognitive-behavioural therapy and/or behaviour therapy research, theory and practice (particularly in the development, or refinement, of clinical techniques/methods) are occurring rapidly. So are developments in cognitive and behavioural psychological perspectives of normal and abnormal psychological processes such as human development and emotion. The application of cognitive, behavioural and cognitive-behavioural theory and approaches is happening in many fields other than mental health, eg. Education and training, public health, organisational psychology, forensic psychology, management consultancy, sports psychology for instance.