The psychologists at Third Wave Psychotherapy all worked together as partners at Behavior Therapy Associates (BTA), a group practice in Albuquerque, NM. While BTA is no longer an active group practice, it is worth taking a minute to reflect on the history and legacy of BTA as many in our community relied on BTA to refer people for reliably high-quality, evidenced-based mental healthcare.

At the time BTA was started in 1978, the field of psychology was shifting away from psychoanalysis to behavioral therapy, also known as the “first wave.” Behaviorism showed how behaviors are learned through our interactions with the environment and therefore can be unlearned or modified (as opposed to attributing our behavior to unconscious mechanisms). At the same time, the field was integrating the importance of love, comfort, and attachment for optimal psychological development.

Cognitive therapy and cognitive-behavior therapy, also known as the “second wave”, view our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors as interdependent. The second wave streamlined interventions for specific disorders through structured treatments that could be studied in research trials, taught to clinicians in a systematic way, and translated into self-help material for the public. Barlow’s Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment is one example of how randomized-clinical trials led to a consensus on best practices for treating anxiety, mood, and trauma disorders.

The psychologists who formed and participated in BTA over the years were experts in the field of behavioral and cognitive-behavioral treatment. The evolution from BTA to Third Wave is driven by the need to expand both the size of our practice to meet the growing need for mental health services in New Mexico and to offer services that align with where the field is today and what research has shown to be effective.