Research indicates that significant discussions, debates, and studies in the 19th and 20th centuries explored the importance of agency and personal responsibility, with notable contributions from William James (1842–1910), Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), and John B. Watson (1878–1958).

William James, in 1890, applied what he referred to as his functionalist approach pertaining to behavior, as published in his book The Principles of Psychology. At about the same time, Sigmund Freud began developing his theoretical concepts, which would later form the foundation of psychoanalysis. In the early 20th century, John B. Watson explored the concept of behaviorism with the publication of his book in 1913, titled Psychology as the Behaviourist Views It.

All of these influences converged in the mid-20th century with the eventual applied research of Albert Ellis and his Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (1955), and then, in the 1960s, Aaron Beck advanced these theories further with his applied concept of Cognitive Therapy (which combined behavioral techniques with his concept of “cognitive restructuring”; i.e., changing thinking to change behavior). This applied process then helped advance the process that became behavior therapy.

In 1965, William Glasser published Reality Therapy, which focused on the existential principle that if a person wanted to make changes in their life, the only way these changes could take place was in the “reality of the present.” Glasser argued that focusing on past events was neither helpful nor beneficial. That is because, according to Glasser, the only place where changes could take place in a person’s life was, as noted, in the immutable existential present.

All of these combined, yet independent studies and applied research, eventually culminated in the social and professional recognition of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT; Beck, 1993; Beck & Dozois, 2011; García-Peñagos & Malone, 2013; Harzem, 1995; Leary, 1992; Hofmann et al., 2012; Westen, 1998).

As noted, in his applied research, Glasser stresses the significance of the present and personal agency. In Reality........

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