Therapists' self-practice of CBT

This study investigated the prevalence of voluntary self-practice of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) by accredited CBT practitioners, and explored the ability of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to predict intentions to engage in CBT self-practice. A TPB questionnaire was constructed by implementing the protocol devised by Francis et al. (2004), with content specific items generated from an elicitation exercise to obtain salient beliefs regarding CBT self-practice. A sample of 177 accredited CBT practitioners completed an online survey which included demographic items and the TPB questionnaire. It was found that 46.4% of participants intended to self-practice CBT more than once a week over the following month. While the TPB predicted intentions to self-practice CBT (R2 = .445, p < .001), structural equation modeling revealed that the theory of reasoned action (R2 = .473, p < .001) was the best model fit of the observed data (RMSEA = .00, CFI = 1.00). It was concluded that a substantial proportion of CBT practitioners intended to regularly engage in CBT self-practice, with intentions predicted by subjective normative beliefs and attitudes towards the behaviour. Implications are discussed, with calls for the study to be replicated. Potential future research is considered, with suggestions to explore the role of CBT self-practice to promote therapist wellbeing.