Cognitive behavioral therapy in Romania

Compared to other countries (particularly those in the West), Romania has had a rather unsystematic trajectory in terms of its reception of the cognitive-behavioral model. The adoption of the model has been delayed mostly due to the influence of the communist regime present in the country between 1948 and 1989. By antagonizing the Western direction in evidence-based psychology, the communist ideology kept the mainstream psychological discourse and practice away from the evolution of the field for almost half a century. After the fall of communism in 1989, lacking the infrastructural prerequisites, most of the academia and professional practice focusing on CBT began to assimilate the model in a rather self-taught way. Recent developments, however, have aligned important parts of the Romanian research and practice of CBT with international standards. The present chapter outlines the history of psychotherapy in Romania, with a special focus on the assimilation of the cognitive-behavioral model, and discusses the current status of this approach in the country.