Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: Standards for Training and Clinical Practice

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to open discussion on the appropriate standards for training and practice in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for clinical psychologists. CBT has in recent years become increasingly popular as a brief and effective psychological treatment for mental health problems. Public funding has become available for the provision of CBT for a prescribed number of sessions to people diagnosed with specific psychiatric disorders, and there has been an increasing shift in public mental health services toward more short-term and structured episodic care interventions, many of which are CBT-based. There has also been a corresponding increase in health professionals seeking CBT training and offering psychological services described as CBT. However, there is a lack of formal nationally agreed standards for clinical psychologists in relation to training and practice in CBT, and ethical concerns have been raised about the provision of 'stand-alone' brief training to professionals who do not have an undergraduate psychology degree and hence may not have an understanding of the theory and research that underlies CBT. Issues raised in this article include training and practice considerations such as levels of competence, diversity and complexity of CBT, treatment length, ethical considerations and barriers to best practice. T he purpose of this article is to open discussion on the appropriate standards for training and practice in cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for clinical psychologists. Over the past 20 years clinical psychologists have played a major role in the development of CBT. Thus, the College of Clinical Psychologists has a central role in maintaining the integrity of this therapeutic intervention by specifying the parameters of what constitutes CBT and promoting and supporting best practice standards in clinical psychology. A position paper is necessary to provide guidelines for the provision of training and the delivery of CBT treatment by clinical psychologists. In addition, standards developed by the College for clinical psychologists may be of assistance to a wider range of stakeholders in services for mental health problems, including administrators, service providers, medical practitioners and allied health professionals, as well as those receiving psychological services.

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