What are future directions? - Chapter 25

What is this chapter about?

Due to the enormous growth of CBT and the developments within CBT, many more children and adolescents with mental health problems are now receiving proper treatments. However, the accessibility of CBT remains a problem and is something that still needs to be worked on in the future. The success of CBT in this target group is due to at least the following three elements:

1. Approximately 10% of all children and adolescents meet the diagnostic criteria of a mental disorder at any given time, however, there are not as many evidence-based psychological treatments available. This has worked as a huge motivation for developing the CBT and raising funds.
2. CBT itself has some distinctive therapeutic approaches, but has also borrowed a lot from other developing areas. For example, development models and systemic approaches are strongly present within each CBT treatment.
3. CBT, effective and cost effective as it is, is highly developed through close integration of clinical practice and careful research.

Much can still be learned from developments taking place within the CBT of adults. For example, mindfulness-based CBT is quite effective in preventing relapse in adults with chronic depression. Further research can be conducted onto how this can be used for children and adolescents in a similar situation.

The gold standard for evaluating the effectiveness of treatments is still the RCT, and the quality of RCTs with children and adolescents has improved greatly lately.

However effective CBT is new and even though there are promising new developments, the main goal at the moment should be to make CBT accessible to children and families that need it. Fortunately, more and more creative, innovative ways of transmitting CBT with the help of media are being developed. This allows CBT to truly achieve an international reach. It is, of course, a side note that the content of the CBT is mainly dominated by Western views on the definition of the "self" and other concepts, so we cannot assume that the CBT therapy as we know it can really be successfully applied worldwide. Cultural-sensitive research on the current CBT models is therefore necessary.

What are the conclusions?

CBT has tremendous potential for improving the lives of many children, adolescents and families. This book has discussed the many and diverse ways in which CBT has evolved, as well as the remaining challenges. The key word for the future is "collaboration". Collaboration between scientists (neuroscientists, cognitive and developmental psychologists) in developing and experimenting with theories, collaboration between scientists and therapists/practitioners, and collaboration between practitioners of different disciplines (psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy). However, the most important collaboration is between therapists and the children, adolescents and parents who use the services. Motivating users is the key to success in all therapies.

This book does not include any contributions from the actual service users, something that should definitely be taken into account in future releases about CBT.

Due to the enormous growth of CBT and the developments within CBT, many more children and adolescents with mental health problems are now receiving proper treatments. However, the accessibility of CBT remains a problem and is something that still needs to be worked on in the future.