Dr. Aaron T. Beck, Developer of Cognitive Therapy, Dies at 100
Source: New York Times
Dr. Aaron T. Beck, Developer of Cognitive Therapy, Dies at 100
It was an answer to Freudian analysis: a pragmatic, thought-monitoring approach to treating anxiety, depression and other mental disorders, and it changed psychiatry.
By Benedict Carey
Nov. 1, 2021
Dr. Aaron T. Beck, whose brand of pragmatic, thought-monitoring psychotherapy became the centerpiece of a scientific transformation in the treatment of depression, anxiety and many related mental disorders, died on Monday at his home in Philadelphia. He was 100.
His death was confirmed by Alex Shortall, an executive assistant at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., outside Philadelphia. Dr. Beck’s daughter Dr. Judith Beck is its president.
Dr. Beck was a young psychiatrist trained in Freudian analysis when, in the late 1950s, he began prompting patients to focus on distortions in their day-to-day thinking, rather than on conflicts buried in childhood, as therapists typically did. He discovered that many people generated what he called “automatic thoughts,” unexamined assumptions like “I’m just unlucky in love” or “I’ve always been socially inept,” which can give rise to self-criticism, despair and self-defeating attempts to compensate, like promiscuity or heavy drinking.
Dr. Beck found that he could undermine those assumptions by prompting people to test them out in the world — say, by socializing without alcohol to observe what happens — and to gather countervailing evidence from their own experience, like memories of healthy relationships. Practicing these techniques, in therapy sessions and in homework exercises, fostered an internal dialogue that gradually improved people’s mood, he showed.
Dr. Beck’s work, along with that of Albert Ellis, a psychologist working independently, provided the architecture for what is known as cognitive behavior therapy, or C.B.T. Over the past several decades, C.B.T. has become by far the world’s most extensively studied form of psychotherapy. In England, it forms the basis for a nationwide treatment program offering a number of related talk therapies.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/health/dr-aaron-t-beck-dead.html
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Dr Beck's work revolutionised talking therapy and mental health treatment (Getty Images)
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