Seminario online – David Clark

“The development of cognitive therapy for anxiety disorders in the UK”

Seminario in lingua inglese di David Clark, con la partecipazione di Giovanni M. Ruggiero

Venerdì 17 aprile 2020, ore 11.00-13.00

Although standard cognitive behavioral therapy is a creation of Aaron Beck, the final breakthrough came with application of the Beck’s CT model to anxiety disorders, grounded in research from the University of Oxford led by David Clark and Paul Salkovskis. They worked out a series of cognitive therapy protocols modelled on the work of Beck and applied to a wide range of psychological disorders: panic disorder (Clark, 1986), social phobia (Clark & Wells, 1995), post-traumatic stress disorder (Ehlers & Clark, 2000), eating disorders (Fairburn, Shafran, & Cooper, 1999) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (Salkovskis, 1985). Importantly, the clinical efficacy of these protocols was demonstrated in controlled studies (Clark et al., 1999; Hollon & Beck, 1994; Hollon, DeRubeis, & Evans, 1996; Hollon, Strunk, & Stewart, 2006; Nathan & Gorman, 2015; Otte, 2011). The British academics borrowed from Beck both his care for verbal reattribution focused on self-beliefs and his “psychiatric” attention for DSM diagnoses (Rachman, 2015). However, they strongly reintroduced the behavioral element which has historically been central in the British landscape, based on the work of Michael Gelder (Gelder & Marks, 1966) and Victor Meyer (1966).

In addition, David Clark has cooperated with Richard Layard in launching a large programme of psychological therapy in the British National Health System, which is being watched worldwide. Britain has become a world leader in providing psychological therapies thanks to this work. Clark argue that it costs nothing, due to savings on welfare benefits and physical healthcare (Layard & Clark, 2014).

Chair: David Clark, Professor and Chair Of Experimental Psychology

Discussant: Giovanni M. Ruggiero, Sigmund Freud University di Milano

Evento rivolto a studenti e professionisti nei settori della salute mentale (psicologia, psichiatria, medicina)