Collaborative empiricism as the central therapeutic relationship element in CBT: an expert panel discussion at the 7th international congress of cognitive psychotherapy

This article presents a panel discussion on the development of the therapeutic relationship element of collaborative empiricism in Beckian Cognitive Therapy, or Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). The panel comprised experts in research and practice who had been invited as keynote presenters for the 7th International Congress of Cognitive Psychotherapy held in Istanbul, Turkey in 2011. The experts responded to questions about the definition of collaborative empiricism, the role for case conceptualization in collaborative empiricism, how collaborative empiricism contributes to central CBT change mechanisms, and what issues emerge in CBTtraining and supervision. Additional themes arising from the discussion concerned how the relational element of collaborative empiricism is embedded throughout the use of CBT techniques, and highlighted a need for process research on collaborative empiricism in CBT.