Capobianco and Nordahl (2021) recently published an article taking one through the history of Metacognitive Therapy. The article highlights how MCT was developed from cognitive science, backed by a theory and translated into clinical practice.
The authors highlight how the development of MCT was based on a theory of mechanisms underlying psychological disorders (i.e. the S-REF Model; Wells & Matthews, 1994, 1996, and more recently extended Wells, 2019) which is in contrast to a majority of psychotherapies which have been developed based on clinical observation rather than scientifically tested techniques or an a-priori theory, which may be one of the reasons underlying the effectiveness of MCT.
MCT has often been compared with other psychological therapies, with some arguing it is a third wave therapy. Capobianco and Nordahl (2021) note why MCT should not be a classed as such and discuss how MCT is different from other psychological therapies and why MCT may mark a paradigm shift in psychotherapy and may serve as a way forward for clinical psychology.
The article is available open access here