Robert L. Leahy | |
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| Born | 8 March 1946 Alexandria, Virginia, United States of America |
| Alma mater | Yale University |
| Occupation(s) | Psychologist, author |
Robert L. Leahy is a psychologist and author and editor of 29 books dedicated to cognitive behavior therapy. He is the director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy in New York [1] and Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. [2]
Leahy was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of James J Leahy, a salesman, and Lillian DeVita, an executive secretary. His parents separated when he was 18 months old and his mother moved Robert to New Haven, Connecticut. [3] He was educated at Yale University (B.A, M.S, MPhil., PhD) and later completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School under the direction of Aaron T. Beck, the founder of Cognitive Therapy.
Leahy became interested in Beck's Cognitive Therapy model after becoming disillusioned with the psychodynamic model, which he felt lacked sufficient empirical support. [3] Many of his clinical books have been instrumental in disseminating the Cognitive Therapy model in its application to the treatment of depression, [4] bipolar disorder, [5] [6] anxiety disorders, [7] [8] [4] jealousy, [9] and emotion regulation. [10] In addition, he has published widely on the application of the cognitive model to the therapeutic relationship, [11] transference and counter-transference, resistance to change, [12] and beliefs about emotion regulation [10] [13] that may underpin problematic strategies for coping with or responding to emotions in the therapeutic context. [14] His clinical and popular audience books have been translated into 21 languages.
Leahy has expanded the cognitive model with his social cognitive model of emotion, which he refers to as Emotional Schema Therapy. [15] [16] [14] According to this model, individuals differ in their beliefs about the legitimacy of certain emotions, their duration, the ability to express emotions, the need to control emotions, how similar their emotions are to those of others, and the ability to tolerate ambivalent feelings. [14] These beliefs and the strategies connected to them are referred to as "emotional schemas". [15] [14] The Emotional Schema Model draws on Beck's Cognitive Therapy model, the metacognitive model advanced by Adrian Wells, the Acceptance and Commitment Model advanced by Steven C. Hayes, and on social cognitive research on attribution processes and implicit theories of emotion. Leahy has described how his model can help in understanding and treating jealousy, [9] envy, [9] ambivalence, and other emotions, [8] and how these emotional schemas can impact intimate relationships and affect the therapeutic relationship. [11]
In addition to his work on emotional schemas, Leahy has written about problematic styles of judgment and decision making [17] that are relevant in depression and anxiety disorders. These include biased evaluations in over-estimating or under-estimating risk, sunk-cost effects, regret anticipation, rumination over regret, and inaccurate predictions of emotions following anticipated outcomes. [17]
In 2014, Robert L. Leahy received the Aaron T. Beck Award from the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. [18] In 2021, he received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Leahy was named the Honorary Life-time President of the New York City Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Association and Distinguished Founding Fellow, Diplomate, of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. In 2023, Leahy was awarded the Outstanding Clinician Award from Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) [19] and was named ABCT's first Global Ambassador. [20]
Leahy is past-president of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) [21] and the International Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (IACBT). [22] He is the former Editor of The Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy and current Associate Editor of the International Journal of Cognitive Therapy.
