The Medium-Term Future

Extract

Two branches of behaviour therapy will, I believe, dominate the course of events in the coming decade. The cognitive interpretation of behavioural problems (and cognitive solutions) can be expected to expand and deepen. The infusion of cognitive analyses will broaden out from the established bases, the successes achieved in tackling depression and panic disorder, to encompass a wide range of psychological problems. (The need for a coherent and efficient cognitive behavioural psychology will be particularly acute when the current infatuation with biological psychiatry wanes.) This expected expansion will then merge with the other development, the slow (too slow indeed) but steady growth of behavioural medicine. In truth, behavioural medicine, conceived as the application of psychological science to medical problems additional to the psychiatric ones, has been retarded by institutional and intellectual obstacles. For economic and scientific reasons there is likely to be an acceleration of progress in the next decade, and the entire process will, or should, be enriched and enlivened by the introduction of a more cognitive approach to behavioural medicine.