These findings highlight the importance of assessing the suitability of CBT for individual patients. Specifically, patients with greater capacity to identify and articulate thoughts and feelings and to share them in a nondefensive, focused way benefit most from CBT.

We propose that client involvement can be understood as being comprised of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional elements, and we provide concrete examples of these activities.

Despite the robust link between dispositional optimism and well-being across the lifespan, the developmental origins of dispositional optimism are unknown. Understanding the pathways that lead to greater optimism during the transition from adolescence into young adulthood may be important given that this stage of the life course involves the navigation of multiple simultaneous psychosocial demands. Maternal attachment security may contribute to greater optimism by promoting perceptions of internal control. Participants were 218 European American children (98 females; 120 males), who completed self-report measures across four waves. A path analysis tested the associations between maternal attachment security (ages 10 and 14), locus of control (age 14), dispositional optimism (ages 18 and 23), and psychological well-being (age 23). Tests of indirect effects showed that greater perceptions of internal control at age 14 mediated the association between age 10 maternal attachment security and age 18 dispositional optimism. Age 18 dispositional optimism mediated associations between age 14 internal control and age 23 psychological well-being. Maternal attachment security may promote dispositional optimism through a greater internal locus of control in adolescence. Given that optimism promotes well-being throughout the lifespan, identifying the pathways through which optimism develops may contribute to understanding how to promote well-being.

Aim: The finding by Jacobson and colleagues that there was no difference in treatment outcome for individuals treated with a complete cognitive therapy (CT) package and those receiving behavioural activation raised serious concerns about the mediational role of cognition in depression. The present study was designed to test whether the interaction between coping and cognition predicts changes in depressive symptomatology. Method: The sample (N=30) was derived from the full CT condition of the study conducted by Jacobson and colleagues. Therapy transcripts from the third session were rated to assess cognitive errors and coping. Change in depression scores from pre‐treatment to post‐treatment was computed. Findings: Analyses demonstrated that engagement in self‐reliance and not engaging in escape coping predicted greater decreases in levels of depression after CT. Implications for practice: These findings suggest that engaging in specific types of adaptive coping strategies and avoiding maladaptive coping may be important in predicting decreases in depression for individuals who have high levels of certain cognitive errors.

These findings suggest that the impact that lower positive outcome expectancies have on therapy outcome can be attenuated if patients do not avoid dealing with emotionally difficult material in session.