Politicizing CBT: Reflections on the boundaries between therapy and society

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is widely regarded as a neutral, evidence-based approach, yet its frameworks embed implicit assumptions about individual responsibility, rationality, and adaptation that carry professional and political implications. This paper examines how mainstream CBT often decontextualizes psychological suffering, emphasizing personal change while neglecting structural, economic, and political determinants of distress. Drawing on recent critiques, emerging research and contextualized interventions, I argue for politically sensitive CBT, integrating awareness of social determinants, collective trauma, and systemic inequities. Such an approach maintains empirical rigor while enhancing ethical responsibility, clinical effectiveness, and relevance in diverse populations and contexts of collective upheaval. Recognizing the inseparability of mind and society is essential for a potent, socially engaged, ethically grounded practice of CBT.