The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy

"The founders of CBT were directly inspired by ancient Greek philosophy. Unfortunately, not many people are aware of that connection at all. Even a lot of cognitive therapists are unaware of it. That is partly because Aaron Beck was keen to present CBT as an evidence-based scientific therapy, so the philosophical roots of CBT were somewhat swept under the carpet. Donald’s was really the first book to properly explore the relationship between ancient philosophy and CBT. Donald runs one of the main CBT schools in the UK, and he wonderfully brings together a scientific thoroughness and a scholarly appreciation for the intelligence and beauty of some of the original philosophical material. CBT takes a lot of great things from ancient philosophy. But there is a value in also going back to the original material, because there are other techniques and exercises that the ancients used which CBT doesn’t yet use, like certain visualisation techniques for example. Another value of going back to the original material – as Donald does – is that it is so beautifully written. It is much better written than a lot of modern CBT books. So you can either read something quite recent and not that well written, or you can go back and read Plato, Marcus Aurelius or Lucretius, some of the greatest writers ever. I don’t think they are resistant to it at all. It’s just that a lot of them aren’t aware of it. I think more and more psychologists are really interested in the links of their work to philosophy. They are aware that sometimes CBT can be instrumental and technocratic, and that there are more interesting, broader questions about what it means to live a good life that are worth exploring. The same is true on the philosophy side. More and more philosophers are interested in how modern psychologists are trying to test out some of the ancient philosophical techniques for wellbeing."