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This article covers the appropriate and ethical use of prayer including inner healing prayer, and Scripture in a Christian approach to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Expanded CBT now includes Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Implicit and explicit integration in therapy are briefly described. A composite clinical case example is included to illustrate how prayer and Scripture can be explicitly used in Christian CBT Results of outcome studies on the efficacy of religiously-oriented CBT are also briefly mentioned.
Cogntive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most empirically supported treatments (ESTs) available for a wide variety of psychological disorders (Chambless & Ollendick, 2001; see also Butler, Chapman, Forman, & Beck, 2000; Nathan & German, in press; Roth & Fonagy, 2005; Tan, 2001a). It should be noted however, that a more recent randomized placebo-controlled trial of behavioral activation, cognitive therapy and antidepressant medication (paroxetine) with 241 adult patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) found that for severely depressed adults, behavioral activation is as efficacious as antidepressant medication and more efficacious than cognitive therapy (Dimidjian, et al., 2000).
Empirically supported therapy relationships (ESRs) and empirically supported principles of therapeutic change (ESPs) have also been more recently emphasized in addition to ESTs. In fact, evidence-based practice in psychology (EBPP) presently focuses not only on the best available research, but also on therapist clinical expertise, and client characteristics, culture, and preferences (see Tan, 2007).
Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda and Lillis (2000) recently pointed out that a historical overview of behavior therapy can be divided into three major generations or waves: the first generation or wave consisted of traditional behavior therapy; the second generation or wave consisted of CBT (which is now more than 30 years old); the third generation or wave presently consists of relatively contextualistic approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993). CBT today has therefore been expanded to include such mindfulness and acceptance-based therapies as ACT, MBCT, and DBT (Hayes, Follete, & Linehan, 2004). Bishop et al. (2004) have recently proposed the following operational definition of mindfulness:
We propose a two-component model of mindfulness. The first component involves the self-regulation of...