The tradition of holding World Congresses in Cognitive and Behavior Therapy began with the first World Congress of Behavior Therapy in Jerusalem (1980). This was followed by World Congresses in Washington DC, USA (1983), Edinburgh, Scotland (1988) and the Gold Coast, Australia (1992).
During this time the International Association of Cognitive Psychotherapies (IACP) also organized the World Congress of Cognitive Therapy in Umea, Sweden (1986), Oxford (1989) and Toronto (1992).
The experience of running two separate world congresses in 1992 which had considerable overlap led to the decision to combine the two World Congresses. Hence, the 1995 World Congress in Copenhagen was the 1st World Congress of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies with Dr. David Clark (UK) chairing the scientific committee for the cognitive arm and Dr. Lars Goran Ost (Sweden) chairing the one for behavior therapy.
During this meeting the World Congress Committee (WCC) was formed on 15th July 1995 and continued to meet on an annual basis chaired by Dr. Juan Preciado (ABCT) to 1998, Dr. Art Nezu (ABCT) to 2005, Dr. Kim Halford (AABCT) to 2009, Dr. Steven Hayes (ABCT) to 2010 and since then by Dr. Sarah Egan.
The idea of forming a global organization of CBT was first raised at a meeting of the World Congress Committee (WCC) held in Nashville, Tennessee in November 2013 during the ABCT convention in November 2013 by Dr. Lata K. McGinn, then president of IACP who then formed a working group comprised of Dr. Lata McGinn (then IACP), Dr. Keith Dobson (ABCT), Dr. Rod Holland (EABCT) and Dr. Philip Tata (UK) to develop a proposal for the formation of a world organization of cognitive and behavioral therapies.
Dr. Lata K. McGinn presented the proposal at the WCC meeting held at the 2014 ABCT convention in Philadelphia. The proposal was unanimously approved by the World Congress Committee.
A WCC Subcommittee was formed (Dr. Lata K. McGinn, Chair), Dr. Keith Dobson, Dr. Rod Holland, Dr. Philip Tata, Dr. Ross Menzies, Dr. Sarah Egan, Dr. Jung Hye-Kwon, Dr. Thomas Ollendick, and Dr. Luis Oswaldo Perez to develop a formal proposal for the World Congress Committee to transition into the World Confederation of CBT (WCCBT). This proposal was unanimously approved by the World Congress Committee.
The last meeting of the World Congress Committee was held on November, 2018. Chair of the WCC, Dr. Sarah Egan, thanked the WCC for their work over the years to organize the World Congresses.
The World Congress Committee was officially closed on January 6th, 2019 and the World Confederation of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies (WCCBT) was officially formed on January 7th, 2019.
Our thanks go to all those WCC members who have worked over the past 24 years to ensure the effective planning of world congresses and their role in promoting the dissemination of evidence-based principles and practice of cognitive and behavioral therapies.