Beck Institute is excited to announce that we have recently worked with Dr. Yutaka Ono and his wonderful colleagues in Japan to translate one of our foundational online courses, CBT in Practice, into Japanese. Contributing to the dissemination of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) in Japan has always been an important goal of Beck Institute, continuing the work that was started by Dr. Ono back in the 1980s.
In 1980, there was no CBT in Japan. In fact, only psychiatrists treated patients, and because of government reimbursement policies, most of them only saw patients for 10-minute sessions. Dr. Ono recognized that many patients needed psychotherapy in addition to medication, but psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapies didn’t fit into the current treatment model.
Dr. Ono understood that Cognitive Therapy would be transformative for the treatment of mental health conditions in Japan. In the mid-1980s, Dr. Ono studied CBT at the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. Aaron Beck and Dr. Judith Beck before returning to Japan to introduce and spread the practice.
During the next four decades, Dr. Ono researched CBT and published papers and books. He taught and mentored countless psychiatrists, psychologists, and students. And he founded and led the Japanese Association for Cognitive Therapy, which is the oldest and largest CBT association in Japan. Now, thanks to his tireless efforts, CBT is the predominant form of psychotherapy in Japan.
In 2023, Beck Institute President Dr. Judith Beck and acting Executive Director Dr. Allen Miller visited South Korea for the World Congress of Cognitive Behavior Therapy. During this visit, they met with Dr. Ono, who was enthusiastic about BI’s most recent online course, CBT in Practice. This virtual course was designed to fill an important gap in CBT training that we had identified through feedback from trainees, and Dr. Ono recognized the need for this course to enhance CBT training in Japan.
Over the years, many trainees told us that they had read about CBT or learned about it in their undergraduate or graduate programs. They understood the theory and knew some of the commonly used techniques, but they had never actually seen an entire CBT session. They needed clear and specific instructions on how to actually do all of the parts of a CBT session and they needed to see an expert therapist demonstrating each component.
In addition to meeting this need, CBT in Practice also introduces trainees to a recovery-oriented approach to CBT. Dr. Aaron Beck developed Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy (CT-R) during the final decade of his life and felt that it was his most important accomplishment. It is a humanistic, strengths-based, empowering approach to treatment originally developed to extend the benefits of CBT to individuals diagnosed with serious mental health conditions. CBT in Practice explains and demonstrates how recovery-oriented principles can augment and enhance CBT treatment with outpatients.
For example, this course discusses and demonstrates how to elicit and strengthen clients’ aspirations and values and use them to motivate clients to complete their action plans between sessions. It shows trainees how to increase positive emotion in and between sessions and help clients draw positive conclusions about their experiences to strengthen their positive beliefs. The addition of a recovery orientation makes the course appropriate for both new and experienced clinicians.
Certainly, translating a multi-hour online course containing didactic instruction, lecture, roleplays, experiential exercises, and self-study components is no small feat. Dr. Ono amassed a team of colleagues who expended an incredible amount of effort and time bringing this translation to life. His team worked quickly, thoroughly, and tirelessly to complete and launch this translation, and they did so ahead of schedule. We will be forever grateful to Dr. Ono and his team for making this translation a reality. The translation of this course into Japanese helps us fulfill our nonprofit mission of improving lives worldwide through excellence and innovation in CBT and CT-R.
Our whole staff at Beck Institute is excited that mental health professionals in Japan will now have access to this course, which we think is essential for clinicians to deliver excellent CBT. We expect that the course will have a positive impact on the practice of CBT in Japan.