CBT for Public Good: Why We Need to Be More Comfortable Using Someone Else's Toothbrush

The promise of behavior therapy and, later, cognitive behavioral therapy, was to alleviate human suffering by using a scientific approach to better understand how to develop, test, disseminate, and implement sound psychological treatments. As a field, we have seen great success, including the development of an ever-growing list of evidence-based treatments. However, the proliferation of "new" treatments does not seem to be matched by a commensurate growth in the number of people we are effectively able to help. Suggestions for how to address our stalled progress have included intensified efforts at dissemination and a focus on open science and replication. Here I suggest that if we are to make meaningful progress, the type of progress that makes a difference in people's lives, we must focus more on the why behind what we do-our theories. In particular, I argue that we must focus on formalized theory, but that for this type of work to flourish, we need to redefine and reshape the contingencies in the field of cognitive behavioral science, rethinking our ideas of how success should be defined.