ABSTRACT
The concept of formulation requires that therapists build the information collected about the client at assessment into a comprehensive model that explains the psychological factors involved in the development and maintenance of the client's problem. This `formulation' is then used to guide and monitor psychological interventions. The notion of formulation has probably always been implicit in most approaches to therapy ± evident, for example, in Freud's famous case studies ± but it has evolved, especially in more recent years, by becoming more speci®c and explicit. A major step towards more explicit formulation came from ideas that developed in behaviour therapy in the 1960s and 1970s (Bruch & Bond, 1998), about the same time as the ®rst prototypes of Beckian formulation were developing. Beck's formulations were based on `cognitive speci®city' (Point 2). Beck's cognitive model was ®rstly con®ned to depression (Beck et al., 1979b), but then, as interest grew following the success of that model, it was applied to other areas: to anxiety (Beck & Emery, 1985), personality disorders (Beck et al., 1990) and substance abuse (Beck et al., 1993). Explicitness grew from increasingly clearly written formulations presented in diagrammatic form. The diagram now most usually associated with cognitive therapy: the `longitudinal formulation' (see Figure 2) seems to have been ®rst drawn by Judith Beck (Beck, 1995). A template for full written formulations can be seen from the website of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy (www.academyofct.org).
