Evolution of the Research
The timeline below shows the temporal sequence of events in my 40-year programme of research on psychological treatments and their dissemination. With the advantage of hindsight, it is clear that there are four overlapping phases:
1977 to 2000 - Devising and evaluating a cognitive behavioural treatment for bulimia nervosa
1990 to 1998 - Devising and testing scalable ways of delivering the treatment
1998 to 2015 - Devising and evaluating a transdiagnostic treatment for the eating disorders (CBT-E)
2012 to present - Devising and testing new ways of disseminating psychological treatments in general
Timeline
1977 Young women with a novel form of eating disorder start presenting for treatment in Edinburgh
1977 I start to devise a novel cognitive behavioural treatment for this eating disorder (bulimia nervosa)
1980 [I return to Oxford to pursue research on CBT-BN]
1981 [I am awarded MRC funding for an initial trial of CBT-BN: CBT vs STP]
1981 CBT-BN case series published (Fairburn, 1981)
1984 [I am awarded the top level of Wellcome personal support ... intermittently renewed until 2017]
1985 Second trial of CBT-BN starts: CBT vs BT vs IPT
1986 First CBT-BN trial published (Fairburn et al, 1986)
1989 [I hold a one-year Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford]
1990 I propose a "stepped care" strategy for managing BN (Fairburn and Peveler, 1990)
1991 Second CBT-BN trial published (Fairburn et al, 1991, 1993)
1992 Stanford-Columbia-Oxford CBT-BN trial starts: CBT vs IPT
1993 Binge Eating: Nature, Assessment and Treatment published
1995 Overcoming Binge Eating published (Fairburn, 1995)
1996 Pilot primary care study of guided self-help for BN published (Waller et al, 1996)
1998 Trial of guided self-help for binge eating disorder published (Carter and Fairburn, 1998)
1998 Begin to develop and refine CBT-E
1999 [Second CASBS fellowship at Stanford]
2000 Stanford-Columbia-Oxford CBT-BN trial published (Agras et al, 2000)
2001 First CBT-E trial starts
2003 CBT-E theory paper published (Fairburn et al, 2003)
2008 CBT and Eating Disorders published (Fairburn, 2008)
2009 First CBT-E trial published (Fairburn et al, 2009)
2010 Second CBT-E trial starts: CBT-E vs IPT
2012 [Start of work with Vikram Patel on the dissemination of psychological treatments in general]
2013 CBT-E-based version of Overcoming Binge Eating published (Fairburn, 2013)
2014 Fairburn and Patel paper on dissemination published (Fairburn and Patel, 2014)
2015 Second CBT-E trial published (Fairburn et al, 2015)
2015 Start of Pride trial evaluating a two-step intervention for adolescents in India with mental disorders
2016 Development of a web-based method for training therapists to deliver psychological treatments
2017 Trial of a simple psychological treatment for depression published (Patel et al, 2017)
2017 Digital technology and psychological treatment paper published (Fairburn and Patel, 2017)
2017 Two studies of web-based training published (Fairburn et al, 2017; Cooper et al, 2017)
2017 Beginning of the Essence project on the digital training of lay health workers in India
2017 [Completion of my Wellcome Principal Research Fellowship]
2019 Start of the Empower initiative on the global dissemination of psychological treatments
2019 Festschrift in Oxford to celebrate the completion of my 40-year research programme
2019 Festschrift in Oxford
Looking Forwards
Looking forwards, I plan to focus on three objectives (in random order): first, facilitating the work of Vikram Patel and others on the global dissemination of effective psychological treatments; second, helping my colleagues Rebecca Murphy and Riccardo Dalle Grave take forward the work on CBT-E; and third, reserving time to "get a life"!
